To be quite honest, I barely remember talking about Free Trade in 8th grade Social Studies. Needless to say, I don’t think about it often, or really remember what it is about. I researched the term Free Trade on Wikipedia to refresh my memory. This policy prevents taxes on products and services imported and exported from various countries. The concept is that both countries will profit- one from selling goods, the other from buying the goods. Friedman asks the question if Free Trade is still working for today’s technology-based society. Countries that used to be considered poor are now becoming rich by providing services through outsourcing and offshoring. This causes a problem for some of the population in the country that is asking for these services. When products and services are outsourced or produced outside of the country, the ultimate result is a lack in employment. While the corporation has decided to increase revenue by sending these services out, and the countries receiving the requests are making money, the employee of the corporation is left without a job. So, the question is, do we charge for services that are sent out of the county. At first thought, this seems like a good idea. Charge companies a tax for sending out potential jobs, or charge for services that were outsourced or a by-product of offshoring. Upon further search, I found that most economist disagree with the idea of preventing companies from outsourcing. They state that even though the outsourcing country might not exactly come out on top of the deal, it is overall better for the country than if they decided not to outsource at all. I do not know much about economics, nor do I really pay attention to trades, stocks and the like, but I do agree with former President William McKinley when he stated “Buy where you can pay the easiest”.
As the world becomes even flatter, new jobs will be developed. Jobs that were once considered a necessity will become obsolete due to computers and advancing technology. Freidman explains that people that once held these now obsolete jobs will need to find new jobs, preferably ones that won’t be affected by outsourcing and more technological advances. These jobs are called “middle jobs”. Skills and personality traits that would be applicable to these types of jobs include: excellent communication and managerial skills (collaborators and orchestrators); creativity (synthesizers); the ability to explain complex ideas or processes (explainers); the ability to work smarter and faster (leveragers); the ability to adapt to new technology (adapters); having an understanding of “green” energy (green people); excellent customer service with attention to details (personalizers); an interest in math (math lovers); understand how to take emerging technology to benefit both company and customer (localizers). People who posses even a few of these skills should be able to land a job that is untouched by an ever changing job market due to improved technology.
The equation CQ+PQ > IQ, simply means that curiosity and passion are more important that intelligence. Those that have curiosity and passion for a certain idea or concepts are more motivated and work harder than those that have a general intelligence in the subject. This means that even though your peer or competition may be smarter than you, you more to offer if you have a deeper interest in the company or job. Employers will be looking for this drive and motivation over someone with better grades.
I appreciated reading Friedman's analysis of what people need to do now to prepare themselves to gain new jobs in a flat world. I think the key is to develop the skill sets that enable a person to be employable when so many jobs are becoming automated and obsolete, and Friedman gives a good idea of how to think about what skill sets are important when he discusses the "middle jobs".
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