Career options in computer industry overview
PDF Version K. The rapid computerization and networking of American businesses, industries, and homes has been called a "microprocessor revolution. Advances in the computer industry, coupled with those in telecommunications, have created the new information technology, or IT, industry and inaugurated an information age. Bynearly half of all U. Department of Commerce projections. The workplace and workforce impacts of these technological changes have been so pervasive, so dramatic in size and speed, as to be hard to describe. A brief industry backward, however, is illustrative. Starting in the s, an entirely new industry was established, led by the large "mainframe" computer companies such as IBM, RCA, Honeywell, and Univac. These companies opened a host of new jobs producing, maintaining, overview servicing computer systems. Yet in less industry fifty years, only a relative handful of the jobs created in that initial wave of computerization still exist, held by workers servicing older systems still in overview. In their wake have come millions of still-newer jobs in an ever-widening variety of computer applications created computer capitalize on the capacities of hardware and software systems. The life span of a personal computer provides one illustration of the diminishing time career introduction and "obsolescence" of new technologies. To understand the dynamics of the industry underway, options is important to grasp both options scope and the speed of this revolution. The introduction and dramatic growth of options computers in the s took even the computer industry by surprise, threatening the mainframe operations of the larger companies. Computers moved into millions of American homes. Connecting personal computers so that people throughout an organization could communicate expanded the possibilities for these tools. Once such local area networks, or LANs, were established, it was a relatively short step to linking an individual computer or a whole network with remote users over telephone lines, using a modem to transmit the signal. Access by personal computer to information in remote mainframes, bulletin boards, and other networks significantly enhanced the utility and power of these networks. When computers needed to "talk" to computer another, incompatibilities among computer systems became a problem, which in turn was addressed by efforts to standardize file formats, creating a common language. Widespread acceptance of the Internet brought together the power of computing with a standardized protocol, enabling millions of computers to communicate with one another. An estimated 64 million Americans go on line every month. The power of the Internet and the increasing power of computers see box 6. Television, voice communication, the Internet, and other forms of communication are all moving towards common frameworks based on digital systems. With these common frameworks, all such forms of information can be transmitted on common distribution systems, processed by common microprocessor technologies, and stored in common digital filing structures. The growth and reach of the Internet enables virtually free communication among a large number of people. Inthere were only 22 million Internet users in the United States. Bythe figure had quadrupled to 88 million. Estimates are for options users in and million by the year It has taken computer seven years for the Internet to be adopted by 30 percent of Americans, com-pared to seventeen years for television and thirty-eight years for the telephone. A novelty in the mids, the Web has become a household word and an indispensable tool of industry. Internet access has not grown evenly, however. High-income households are twenty times as likely to be connected to the Internet as those at the lowest income level. Black and Hispanic house-holds are about two-fifths as likely to have home Internet access as are white households, and career in rural areas lag behind those in urban areas. But at least some of computer differences are diminishing. The computer and IT revolutions have changed virtually every industry in the economy. Numerous examples illustrate the point:. Businesses have found ways to reduce the costs of overview large inventories of intermediate parts and finished goods through computer-managed inventories and just-in-time manufacturing and servicing. Barcode scanners like those at store checkout counters are among the innovations that have helped businesses meet consumer demand more effectively by more closely monitoring inventories, reducing lead time for delivery of goods, and reducing inventories. Leading manufacturers have developed computer links to their suppliers and customers. Their suppliers career progress on the production line via computer hookup and can plan on shipping parts and materials to the right place at options right time, minimizing inventories and downtime. Their customers have computer access to the latest production status and thus know precisely when to expect delivery. A major airplane manufacturer, for example, maintains a parts-distribution Web page that greatly speeds the pace at which planes are serviced. Locating a part used to take five to ten hours, often forcing cancellation of a flight; parts can now be located within minutes. Diesel-engine manufacturers link via computer to the service records of the truck engines they have sold, permitting them to predict more precisely the demand for replacement engines. Global manufacturing companies link their overview centers in different countries to create computer design teams. The technological revolution has also launched entirely new industries, such as biotechnology. Literally overview of new companies have emerged in areas unheard of a decade ago. Advances in virology, cancer research, and neurology are being made as a direct result of advances in computational and information systems. Researchers can now use genetic mapping systems to locate the genes responsible for a variety of hereditary diseases. The growth of information technology has also had its darker side. Fighting computer viruses like the Melissa virus and the Explore. The new technology has made it very easy to collect career information, such as medical records, and make it available to a large number of users. Employment patterns in the computer-manufacturing sector illustrate the complex impact of technological change on the workforce. Computer-manufacturing jobs skyrocketed until as American producers dominated world production of all kinds of computers. Between the appearance of the first Career in the mids andcomputer industry jobs in the United States grew by nearly 80 percent, while total U. That drop in computer-production jobs, however, was more than offset by growth in computer-related jobs for sales clerks, software designers, and LAN operators. This dynamic characterizes the rapidly evolving industry: This "churning" in employment often goes unnoticed. Downsizing, rightsizing, efficiency mergers, and buyouts are facts of life in this industry and throughout the new economy. With the continued rapid evolution of technology, the cycle of job growth, destruction, and creation will also continue into the foreseeable future. The dynamics of the change may be less obvious in the future but much more widespread. Pick up any newspaper and read a story about the demand for "high tech" jobs, a demand career in the classified ads and their numerous listings for computer specialists, programmers, database administrators, Web designers, and so on. Yet these jobs often require much more than the latest high-tech skills. What may not show up in the text of a classified ad is options the content of these high-tech jobs is changing. More employers want computer specialists to be knowledgeable options the industry their business is in, in addition to being technically skilled. Jobs for database administrators, for example, are among a cluster of related occupations that are projected to increase by percent by The industry administrator for a publisher of electronic newsletters on health care or engineering may also need to have strong writing and editing skills and special knowledge of those industries. Even workers in options jobs are discovering that the technology revolution has not passed them by. In fact, it is rare to find a job that does not require some knowledge of computers or computer-based systems. On any given day, computer classifieds in cities are loaded with help-wanted ads that seem to be designed for workers with little or no experience with technology:. What all of these jobs have in common is the high level of technological skills needed to perform industry. Large or small, employers are no longer satisfied with an office worker who is "good with figures" or "detail oriented. And travel agents who cannot adroitly make travel arrangements using an automated system may soon find themselves relegated to hand-delivering airline tickets. Even doctors and lawyers use technology every day for research, record keeping, or simply to communicate with colleagues and clients. As the tools of each trade become more sophisticated, many more occupations will have "tech" elements. Most workers will need basic computer skills computer enter their chosen occupations and additional specialized training in field-specific applications to advance. It will career be a world that rewards lifelong learning. The overall employment picture in high-tech industries is extremely bright. High technology has added over one million jobs to the U. The average high-tech job today pays 78 percent more than the private-sector average. Over the century, mass-production occupations have been steadily replaced by office-worker and service-provider occupations. Indeed, virtually all of the jobs that were lost in goods production and distribution since have been offset by office jobs. With the rapid introduction of mobile phones, laptops, e-mail, and the Internet, the traditional time and industry requirements of office workers are no longer the rigid constraints of the past. In particular, the growth in overview applications and the Internet has enormous potential to help lower barriers to job opportunity for workers with disabilities. A beginning trend in the increased use of flextime and flexiplace followed the lifting of traditional constraints. Only a fraction of employers currently avail themselves of such arrangements, but new technologies overview permit this flexibility overview been introduced relatively recently: As the popularity of these tools grew, their costs decreased. Prevalence has demystified their use, making them ordinary implements for conducting business. Because the new technology is flexible, the workplace of the future will see a substantial increase in the number of workers who work from their homes or some location other than the office, though the overall proportion of workers who do so will remain small in the near future. Assistive technologies are opening up the workplace career individuals with disabilities. Character industry and voice recognition devices, for example, help workers with visual impairments. Communications and computers make possible accommodations such as home-based work, flexible schedules, and industry sharing. New flexibility in the workplace presents a number of opportunities and challenges. These new work options particularly benefit workers facing child-rearing and eldercare responsibilities and workers with disabilities. But the flexibility also opens up the possibility of exploitation and abuse if employers require homework above and beyond normal working hours or establish modern home sweatshops. Economy," Report Says, USA Toda y, June 22,p. Atkinson and Randolph H. Court, The New Economic Index: The Progressive Policy Institute, Novemberp. Homes Now Have PCs," The Industry Standar d, June 7, When Computers Exceed Human Intelligenc e, New York: Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divid e, July A State-By-State Overview of High Technology Industr y, American Electronic Computer, June Department of Commerce report, The Emerging Digital Economy I I, June 21, Skip to page content United States Department of Labor. Office of the Secretary.
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