knowledge worker

In these days of high unemployment, it’s hard to imagine a worker shortage. The shortage, however, is real. The book Workforce Crisis states that, “the United States will need 18 million new college degree holders by 2012 to cover job growth and replace retirees, but, at current graduate rates, will be 6 million short.”

But is more public financing of education the answer to alleviating the crisis?

New forms of social collaboration and social networking worldwide are growing as the Internet and wireless devices continue to evolve. Use of blogs, wikis, Facebook and MySpace is exploding. And, of course, search engines such as Google and Bing have universalized access to knowledge.

Critical issues must be addressed to ensure that education meets the demands of the emerging knowledge society.

William B. Johnston and Arnold H. Packer, in their landmark study, Workforce 2000, cited education and training as the primary systems by which human capital is both developed and protected. The speed and efficiency with which these systems transmit knowledge and influence the rate of growth in human capital are more important than the traditional gauge of rate of investment in plant and equipment, the same study noted.

The knowledge society we have entered differs greatly from the industrial society we leave behind. In the industrial society the principal resource was energy, and its tools were artifacts such as forklifts, cranes, trucks, trains, automobiles, and airplanes. It allowed us to extend the human body.

The amount of information generated and transmitted electronically is almost overwhelming. Between the end of 2005 and the end of 2007, for example, the number of text (SMS) messages generated per year grew from 81 billion to 363 billion, according to CTIA-The Wireless Association®.

In fiscal year 2007, the Library of Congress served up 614 million page views of its Web site, and the Library’s online historical collections included 13.6 million digital files.

Higher education in the U.S. has become increasingly attractive to foreign students. In 2005-2006, for instance, there were about 565,000 foreign students studying at U.S. colleges and universities. Fifty-eight percent of those students were from Asian countries. Although all societies contribute to the evolution of education, economic and workforce experts claim that North American, Western European, and Australian universities produce graduates with unique capabilities.