Engineering and the three laws of future employment

I'll start off pre-Engineers Week (I did MathCounts yesterday at UTD so I got in the mood) with an article in Newgeography.com by Daniel Jelski - - The Three Laws of Future Employment.  Jelski is a college educator - - Daniel Jelski became Dean of the School of Science and Engineering at the State University of New York at New Paltz in August 2007.  He doesn't have specific recommendations, but what he calls "some boundaries on the path forward." 

Jelski starts with his Three Laws of Future Employment - -

• Law #1 - - People will get jobs doing things that computers can't do.
• Law #2 - - A global market place will result in lower pay and fewer opportunities for many careers.
• Law #3 - - Professional people will more likely be freelancers and less likely to have a steady job.

None of the three laws are terribly new or earth-shattering.  What Jelski has done is spin the three laws in the context of STEM careers.  Conventional wisdom has us entering a period of innovation renaissance.  For example, we graduated 11,619 electrical engineers in 2009, about 50% the number of 25 years ago.  This is seen as an example of the US falling behind in innovation and related technologies.  Jelski has a very different point of view and the following commentary:

•  Some disciplines of engineering and activities are tradable in the world.  In other words, the job is not location specific (e.g., cleaning toilets is location specific - - they cannot be cleaned in China).  Engineering that falls under the tradable category is subject to Law #2.
• Tradability is a function of Law #1 - - computers now do much of the work engineers used to do - - computers design circuits, do all the drafting, plan the manufacturing, etc.  This would indicate the need for fewer STEM jobs, not more.  Given Laws #1 and #2, do we really need national policies dictating the need to train an additional 10,000 engineers?
• One outcome of Laws #1 and #2 is a path that takes us toward Law #3.  People will always be employed in STEM disciplines, many of them highly paid, but they'll be paid for smarts rather than education.  The issue is numbers - - who and how many engineers will fall into this highly paid category?  The Internet has greatly reduced the transaction costs associated with a freelance economy - - the non-highly paid are subject to lower and lower transaction costs.. 
• A key goal should be to add non-tradable skills to engineering and our core skill set.  The attributes and elements that cannot be computerized.  Empathy is one example - - the human-human interaction deeply embedded in engineering (adding more socio to the idea of sociotechnical engineers).  Empathize if you can (or be subject to Laws #1, #2, and #3).  Computers can't do that.  Engineering jobs that involve empathy (and other things - - like being a keen observer of people or having a general curiosity about how the world works) will always be in high demand.  And if you can do the non-tradable skill thing - - be sure and flaunt it.  My laptop doesn't do "flaunt" at all!!