Every so often the S-AGE returns to HOT TOPICS and answers your questions about work-related subjects of interest to the mature workforce. Let’s start with a quote by the S-AGE that provoked a few questions.

"If your job can be done by someone else, somewhere else, it will.
If your job can be replaced by technology, it will."

I am a writer/journalist and I have heard your quote several times in the past. Can you give me examples that apply to my profession? Yes I can and, remember, whether or not other readers’ careers fit these examples, the simple truths of this quote are universal and apply to all careers to some degree.

"If your job can be done by someone else, somewhere else, it will."

The someone else, somewhere else, turns out to be the contingent workforce who sit anywhere in America or around the world. In other words, while communications skills will be highly valued as time goes by, the careers of writers working in regular, full-time positions (roles formerly labeled as "permanent") will continue to shrink. The free lancer will find many new opportunities as our global reach is extended. Bi-lingual or tri-lingual writers and editors will flourish. Specialists will do very well if they choose their subject(s) very carefully. Opportunities for skillful communicators will abound in online media, web collaboration, cross-world learning, and in writing training manuals supporting new technologies. Time will tell us more about this exciting profession.

"If your job can be replaced by technology, it will." Here is one example for you. Early last week it was reported that the circulation numbers for U.S. newspapers tumbled this past year. There are, most certainly, many reasons for lower circulation but here’s one reason that must be part of the story. According to Nielsen research, 58 million people visited newspaper web sites in September – a total audience increase of 8% over the previous year. The study reported that the average visitor spent 31 minutes at newspaper websites – that is all sites, not those of a single newspaper. In other words, people are looking for multiple news stories, and a variety of opinions, NOT single-source news.

What are the advantages of adding 100 million people to America in the next 35 years and 3 billion people to the world in about the same timeframe? It is hard for me to see many advantages of living in/on such a crowded planet. Remember, please, that I simply claim some modest expertise in predicting workplace and workforce change based upon demographic (and other) research. I am not qualified to tackle the other advantages/disadvantages such massive numbers foretell.

So… writing just about work, I know there will be grand new discoveries in science and medicine. New technologies will help to feed the crowded world. The oceans of the world will be farmed and harvested in ways under early development now. Transportation will look very different than it does today. Communication will be faster, cheaper and more accessible to people throughout the world and scores of people who have not, as yet, been connected by any form of the telephone – will be instantly connected by new wireless technologies. Web collaboration will give companies and global teams advantages like none seen to date. Speaking of the Web, it will explode with interactivity and, as one result; cross-world web-based learning will change the face of education. In America, as elsewhere, mature workers will dominate the "free agent" workforce.

What are the disadvantages of adding so many people to the world and to America? There are no easy solutions to the demographic tsunami that is swirling back and forth across the oceans of the world.

Take one problem that affects the mature population in our country. Social Security currently pays for itself with a 12.4% payroll tax and produces a surplus that the government raids every year to pay other bills. But… Social Security will soon begin to run deficits and ultimately, without reform, will need a transfusion in the trillions of dollars if the government is to keep its promises. Solutions require either a cut in benefits, continued advances in eligibility ages or a whopping increase in personal and corporate income taxes. The solution of working longer over our longer lifetimes – before becoming eligible for Social Security - is the outcome I prefer because I do not see any valid reason for sending our bill to the next generations.

Having written this, I realize I might be wrong and all social systems (Social Security, Medicare and Medical) may be repaired in the near future…but… is working longer really a punishment or a reward? Think about a longer lifetime without some form of work. Will the much younger old of our nation be left to the boredom and loneliness of an old age that does not include the social and financial benefits of work? And, what work is best for the mature? Will it look different than the work of youth? Who will prepare for longer lifetimes? Will you?

How about future generations? Can the crowded earth sustain billions more people? In the next 35 years, can your State support millions more people? Remember that once the numbers are here, they are here to stay and grow. Why is this a problem? Because, as we add 100 million more people to America, we add millions to each community. Texas alone may add 12 million people, Arizona may add 5 million and California may add 20 million people between 2025 and 2035. How about your hometown and its workplace? Is it ready? Are you ready?

I cannot imagine such a throng of people but I hope that your children and your children’s children can for they will be tasked with finding new ways to work and live very soon. Our job is to guide our children to make the career and life choices that will sustain them in the crowded future.

Thank you for asking. Happy Thanksgiving! …The S-AGE