Workingman's dread.

• Author: Kinney, David
• Position: Editorial

In my daddy's time, it was different. Back then, in a place like Burlington, you really didn't have much choice about what to do with your life: You worked in a mill, ran a mill or provided some service to those who did one or the other.

When my old man got out of the Army Air Corps, he went to work for Burlington Mills. It wasn't long before he'd had enough of that, so he learned plumbing on the GI Bill. Though I doubt he knew anything about market research or demographics, it was a smart move.

Whether you were a mill lord living in the biggest house on the hill or a mill hand who came home to a shotgun shack, sooner or later you were bound to be pestered by some problem with your pipes. In the eyes of God and on the seat of a clogged commode, all men were equal. Except those who still used outhouses, which I reckon is one reason my daddy had such disdain for country people.

That was a long time ago. North Carolina is different today, and it will be a far-different place tomorrow.

WHERE THE JOBS ARE - AND WILL BE SHARE OF N.C. EMPLOYMENT 1973 1993 2003(*) Services 14.9% 22.6% 27.4% Retail trade 12.7 16.6 19.4 Manufacturing 30.0 21.4 16.9 Finance, insurance and real estate 5.4 5.4 5.1 Construction 5.8 5.8 5.0 Wholesale trade 3.9 4.5 4.5 Transportation, utilities 4.2 4.3 3.6 and communications Farm 6.4 2.1 1.0 Other private industries 0.7 1.1 1.3 Government 15.8 16.3 15.8 * Projected Source: Problem-Solving Research Inc. Textiles - in fact, all manufacturing - is losing ground to service-sector jobs. We've all seen the numbers. But what do they mean to the economy of the state and the lives of its people? Providing some answers to that question, or at least pointing where to look, is the goal we set for this year's Business Handbook.

To get a glance at what the future might hold, we sent free-lance writer Rob Lamme in search of visionaries, people whose job it is to predict what the new century staring us in the face is likely to bring.

Michael Gallis, a fellow of UNC Charlotte's Urban Institute, sees our cities engulfed by class conflict: The wealthy, armed to the teeth, huddle behind private security "surrounded by the urban poor, who are very antagonistic, who feel left out of the system and have a heightened sense of tension." Only those few with the education or skills to get a good job will prosper, he predicts. The rest, relegated to a giant labor pool, will struggle to survive in service jobs that pay Second- and Third-World wages.

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