If You're a Waiter, the Future Is Rosy:
"'To be competitive and to maintain and improve American living standards, we have to move up the technology food chain,' said Craig R. Barrett, chief executive of the Intel Corporation, the computer chip giant. Worried that young Americans are shunning careers in computer engineering, a development that could threaten the country's technological supremacy, Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman, recently made campaign-style visits to Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other universities to urge students to embrace the field.… "

…some economists point to those same federal forecasts to poke holes in the argument that the key to job creation is more sophisticated education and knowledge. Yes, the greatest increase is expected to be for registered nurses (an increase of 623,000 jobs) and college and university teachers (an increase of 603,000).

But according to forecasts issued last month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 7 of the 10 occupations with the greatest growth through 2012 will be in low-wage, service fields requiring little education: retail salesperson, customer service representative, food-service worker, cashier, janitor, waiter and nursing aide and hospital orderly. Many of these jobs pay less than $18,000 a year. Forecasting an increase of 21 million jobs from 2002 to 2012, the bureau predicted 596,000 more retail sales jobs, 454,000 more food-service jobs and 454,000 more cashier positions.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/weekinreview/07steve.html