Inriguing story over at the The Atlantic by Jordan Weissmann on a new study by Jeremy Greenwood (an economist at Penn) and Emin Dinlersoz (from the Census Bureau) on occupational change between 1983 and 2002. A good deal of the change in occupations had to do with changes in technology. As Weissmann puts it:
In roughly 20 years, entire categories of factory work nearly disappeared. If your job hinged on your aptitude with a shoe machine, it was in danger. Likewise if you worked a lathe every day for a living, or had a spot anywhere else on a classic production line, where dozens of hands handled simple, discreet tasks.