RELEASE ON RECEIPT
March 24, 2004

CONTACT: Dick Samson
(973) 335-3699 - dicksamson@eranova.com

Four Job-loss Laments

And One Rx for Unemployment

MOUNTAIN LAKES, NJ, March 24 - As millions of Americans scrounge in vain for jobs, one expert offers four gloomy observations and a single ray of hope. He is Richard W. Samson, director of think tank EraNova Institute -- www.eranova.com. In a new book, he asserts that we vastly underestimate the independence of today's supercharged business; it can get along quite well, thank you, without expensive human help. The book is "MIND OVER TECHNOLOGY: Coming Out on Top as a Wired World Starts to Run on Automatic."

LAMENT 1: Even dinky manufacturing companies are sending jobs overseas. Samson points to a New Jersey inventor -- companies don't come smaller than one guy -- who has developed a home appliance. "He says American labor would price the gadget out of the market," Samson reports. "So he's having it made in China."

LAMENT 2: Many venture capital firms are pressuring startups to offshore from the get-go. If overseas hiring, with its big cost savings, is not part of the business plan, it may be rejected. "The startup guys die without VC money, so they have little choice."

LAMENT 3: Even employers of illegal aliens are wielding the ax, not for patriotic reasons, but pecuniary ones. For example, citrus farmers are introducing large harvesters to pick oranges automatically, cheaper than ever. "They say migrant labor prices them out of the global market," Samson reports.

LAMENT 4: The highest high tech may not raise employment levels. No one ever expected new marvels like nanotechnology (engineering at the molecular level) to lift millions from the jobless rolls. Tens of thousands of new better jobs, however, might be reasonable to hope for. "But not so fast," says Samson. "China is right behind the U.S. in the number of nanotech patents granted. Put two and two together. Which experts in which country are going to work for less?" Ultra high-tech offshoring may be just around the corner.

"It's depressing," says Samson. "In the past, new small businesses have always led the new-job rally. It's not happening this time. Also, even poverty wages are too rich for the blood of many employers. And next-generation tech looks like a global flyaway."

What's the solution for jobless and soon-to-be-jobless Americans, not to mention their kids in college? In his book, Samson says that "know-how" work may all but disappear along with farm labor (now down to less than 2% of the workforce), and manufacturing (now down to about 17% and falling fast). Does that mean that most of us will be destitute, like Mexican orange pickers with nothing to pick? Samson says no; not if we re-define work along "highly-human" lines.

The alternative, he predicts, is accelerated offshoring and "off-peopling," with a future American's won't like very much: gated, armed enclaves of the rich surrounded by oceans of poverty, ill health, pollution, crime, and domestic terrorism.

Companies need to restructure U.S. jobs to take greater advantage of hard-to-automate qualities such as innovation, social awareness, and responsibility. "They can make tons of money doing this," says Samson, "while preserving middle-class America and their own hides." His book details seven "highly-human" wealth-building avenues.

About "MIND OVER TECHNOLOGY":
Trade paper; 268 pages; ISBN 1-59457-234-8; from Global Book Publisher, a partner of R.R. Bowker. It may be ordered from Amazon.com, Borders.com, Alibris.com, BookSurge.com, bookstores, and by dialing 866-308-6235. A 19-page excerpt is available at www.eranova.com. Cover image: http://www.eranova.com/m-cover.jpg
Samson, an expert on the mind and technology, has published 10 books and served as consultant to AT&T, Cisco and IBM.

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