The New Crafts. EQW Issues Number 2.

Predictions of occupational growth to the year 2000 show how important the "new crafts" are becoming. Workers who possess the new crafts perform jobs that often involve sophisticated technical knowledge but are not done by people with bachelor's degrees. The growth of technical jobs in the middle of organizations threatens the familiar division between managers who hold a store of technical knowledge and workers who carry out their orders. The new technical workers need a different blend of formal education up to an associate's degree level and continuing training at work afterward. Research shows that the new crafts are growing from both above and below. Many tasks done in the past by managers and elite professionals are being handed to technical workers; low-skilled workers who had little autonomy or responsibility in their routine jobs are now analyzing and responding to data. Factors driving the growth of technical jobs are the trend toward larger and more bureaucratic corporations, expansion of science, and technological change. Changes in the workplace present enterprises with huge challenges--to change ideas about the way jobs are organized and managed. Schools face the task of preparing students for jobs that do not fit the old categories of managerial or entry-level work. Workers will have to readjust their attitudes toward education. (YLB)