The report captures the insights of the Nineteenth Annual Aspen Institute Roundtable on Information Technology, where business leaders, technologists, international politicians, academics and innovators explored how global structures and institutions are being confronted by the 21st century realities of distributed knowledge, crowdsourcing, open platforms and networked environments.

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John Sumser poses some interesting questions in a post on HRExaminer: Structural Unemployment in HR , commenting:

The market will face a dichotomy: a surplus of people with HR resumes and a shortage of people with the right skills. This is how structural employment looks within a single discipline.

Today, it is hard to find a cobbler who can resole your shoes. The gradual elimination of that trade has not impacted the demand for shoes or the industry’s ability to keep occidental pedestrians fashionably and/or functionally shod. In fact, demand for shoes is improved by the passing of the humble cobbler.

It may be some ways off but I wonder how long it will be before we see no results for HR-discards looking for their now outsourced jobs online?

Ex-cobblers would be stupid indeed to make their experience as a cobbler the centerpiece of their resume when applying for any job other than Al Bundy’s perhaps, the type of worker “a shortage of people with the right skills” often produces. I think the same may be true for displaced HR workers too.

What say you?

In the same way as brick-and-mortar schools can barely contain a wireless generation how well are they preparing them for future jobs the likes of which we haven’t imagined yet?

[Can't see the video? Click here to view on YouTube]

How many entry-level job descriptions read like they were scratched out on chalkboards, the required skills, competencies, attitudes and what-have-you reminiscent of workplaces that predate Google?

I wonder.