America has left the Industrial Age behind and thrived in the Information Age. But can America thrive in the next era—an era that author Daniel Pink calls “The Conceptual Age” and New York Times columnist David Brooks calls “The Cognitive Age?”
Whatever you call this new era, it’s distinguished by creativity, inventiveness and cognitive abilities—what some are calling “right brain” skills. The “left brain” capabilities that powered the Information Age —computer programmers who crank out code, lawyers who craft contracts, MBAs who crunch numbers—are still necessary. But, according to Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, theses left brain skills are no longer enough to power economic growth.
In the United States, more and more industries are concentrating on innovation and new kinds of value added manufacturing and services to drive their growth. This requires a more complex and creative set of “right brain” skills—including problem solving, communications, entrepreneurship and collaboration.
At the same time, the jobs involving routine work or rote aptitudes—no matter how much skill or education they require—are moving to India, Ireland, and elsewhere. Like assembly-line workers before them, computer programmers and draftsmen, for example, have seen their jobs shipped overseas to the lowest-cost labor market.
The pyramid illustrates how work is likely to be distributed around the world: routine work of all kinds in low-cost countries; creative work in the United States.
Blaming this on globalization misses the point, says columnist David Brooks. Globalization is real and important. But it’s not the central force driving economic change. "We're moving into a more demanding cognitive age," writes Brooks. Therefore, success for U.S. workers means moving up the pyramid of human talents. The creative jobs that drive innovation are now the highest “value added” jobs in the world—the real creators of wealth.
So if states are going to stay competitive, they have to stay “above the line” and develop a workforce capable of doing creative work. This kind of creativity doesn’t just include artists, architects, fashion designers and photographers. It also includes teachers, marketers, medical researchers, geographers, chemists and many others generating new knowledge and new ideas. These workers use complex communication skills, interacting with other people to acquire information, to explain it or to persuade others of the need for action. They also use creative thinking—solving problems without being directed.
Trends to Watch’s researchers calculate that there are approximately 170 occupational classifications that make up the "New Work" at the top of the pyramid. They can be grouped into five major threads—based on the types of knowledge, skills and aptitudes needed—that weave throughout the economy: Creative, Education, Social, Technical and Strategic occupations. Overall, about one in six workers in the United States falls into one of these “New Work” roles.
Almost every state shows job strength in at least one of these categories. Overall, however, “New Work” jobs are concentrated in states with close ties to the New Economy, such as Massachusetts (the clear leader), Maryland, New Jersey, Colorado, California, Virginia, and Vermont. Falling far below the national average in concentration of New Work jobs are deep South states such as Alabama and Arkansas, manufacturing states such as Michigan and Wisconsin, and low-wage states that are growing fast, such as Nevada.
To stay ahead, states must focus not just on jobs or years of education, but on the types of knowledge and cognitive skills possessed by the workforce.
