According to Arnold Kling, a former economist for the Federal Reserve Board, employment trends could be moving to extreme economic restructuring, calling for new approaches to career planning as well as skill development, and this could put clerical positions, which have been a key part of the U.S.'s economy for more than half a century, in danger.

"The economy is in a state of transition, in which the middle-class jobs that emerged after World War II have begun to decline," writes Arnold Kling for TheAmerican.com. "These trends serve to limit the availability of well-defined jobs. If a job can be characterized by a precise set of instructions, then that job is a candidate to be automated or outsourced to modestly educated workers in developing countries."

Kling says technology is creating this job obsolescence at an unparalleled rate. He believes workers who want to succeed in this tough economy must ahead educate themselves and focus on developing the right blend of technical and communication skills.