FUTURE LOOKS BRIGHT FOR `KNOWLEDGE WORKERS'.Byline: Carol Kleiman Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune Daily newspaper published in Chicago. The Tribune is one of the leading U.S. newspapers and long has been the dominant voice of the Midwest. Founded in 1847, it was bought in 1855 by six partners, including Joseph Medill (1823–99), who made the paper In a high-tech society, knowledge is power. And, the importance of knowledge is so pervasive in every segment of employment that there now is a job title for people who work in the area where technology and information intersect In a relational database, to match two files and produce a third file with records that are common in both. For example, intersecting an American file and a programmer file would yield American programmers. . They're called knowledge workers: programmers, computer scientists, Webmasters, architects, engineers, network technicians, health assessment specialists, teachers, product managers, marketing executives and more who work for media and entertainment companies, for computer software manufacturers, for networking companies, health care firms, instrument manufacturers, financial services The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. and more. They're everywhere They're Everywhere is an episode of The WB drama series, Charmed. Synopsis Prue and Piper give in to their fears that the men in their lives may be Warlocks and cast a mind-reading spell to find out the truth. . `` `Knowledge worker' is a new title to capture a segment of the labor market labor market A place where labor is exchanged for wages; an LM is defined by geography, education and technical expertise, occupation, licensure or certification requirements, and job experience that includes individuals who use knowledge, intellectual capacity and unique technical skills to accomplish a special task,'' said Jeffrey E. Christian, president and chief executive of Christian & Timbers Inc., a national executive search firm based in Cleveland. ``Right now, and through the year 2000, there will continue to be a massive shortage of them.'' Christian estimates there are 1 million U.S. knowledge workers. He predicts that jobs for knowledge workers will grow 25 percent to 30 percent a year. In some areas, such as Internet-related jobs, Christian says, job creation will increase 100 percent annually. He also predicts that 20 percent of the jobs created in the next four years will go unfilled unless many of today's workers are retrained. ``Old-economy industries, such as cars, steel, petroleum and housing, are being replaced by knowledge-work industries,'' Christian said. Salaries for top-level knowledge workers are high. ``For senior executives, the average salary is $150,000 annually,'' he said. ``Good people are hard to find.'' Christian estimates that salaries for entry-level technicians who are college graduates range from $32,000 to $40,000 a year. ``We've been hearing about knowledge workers, and their scarcity Scarcity The basic economic problem which arises from people having unlimited wants while there are and always will be limited resources. Because of scarcity, various economic decisions must be made to allocate resources efficiently. , since 1992,'' said Christian. ``The shortages were in information technology in computer-related companies. The demand was for computer scientists, software architects and network engineers. This continues today, but the demand now is from the companies using information technology as well as those making it.'' One of the ``hottest'' areas, the executive search consultant says, is at ``companies that enhance the Internet with bells and whistles A slang English term for exceptional features in some product. In the computer field, it typically refers to functions in software that may be greatly appreciated by some users, even though they may not be necessary most of the time. and those that create its content, such as media and entertainment. They're hiring managers of Internet divisions to supervise content, packaging and marketing.'' To be a knowledge worker, Christian says it's important to have a bachelor's degree in engineering, liberal arts liberal arts, term originally used to designate the arts or studies suited to freemen. It was applied in the Middle Ages to seven branches of learning, the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. or business. In 1981, Paul Flessner received a bachelor's degree in business administration at Illinois State University ISU is recognized in the prestigious US News rankings as a "National University", that is, a university which grants a variety of doctoral degrees and strongly emphasizes research. in Normal and became a knowledge worker, a term that wasn't coined until 11 years later. He started out as a programmer with a Chicago hospital supply company and moved rapidly into management as head of application development. In 1994, Flessner moved to Redmond, Wash., to become general manager of Microsoft Corp.'s SQL Server An earlier relational DBMS from Sybase and from Microsoft. Sybase introduced SQL Server in 1988 for various Unix versions. In that same year, with help from IBM, Sybase created an OS/2 version that Microsoft licensed and branded as Microsoft SQL Server. , a database management system. When he decided to move to a for-profit business, all it took was two phone calls and Flessner had two job offers, proof of the demand for knowledge workers. He started out at Microsoft with a staff of 60 and now has 125. He says he does ``extensive'' hiring. |
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