The combined impact of the six forces changing the workplace—demography, technology, competition, structural shift, reorganization of work, and government regulation—creates both uncertainty and opportunity. These forces vary in the degree to which they can be managed. Demographic and structural changes are uncontrollable but also slow and predictable. Technological change, which is often rapid and unpredictable, is a radical and disruptive force but a long-run source of new jobs. The importance of competition and work reorganization is elevated now in developed nations, where great corporations, expanding into global markets, rush to automate and send their work to lowwage countries. Finally, the importance of government regulation cannot be underestimated.

Perhaps the most critical factor in determining both the experience of workers and the success of economies is the balance a government strikes between protecting labor and allowing adjustment to competitive forces. Globalization of production and labor markets makes the accumulated workers' protections of the last half of the twentieth century a cost burden on companies, governments, and consumers where flexibility is absent. In these nations there is pressure to revise labor laws, weakening protections and social welfare for workers. How will workers fare in the currents of change? Experience suggests that fortunes will be mixed. Yet it is likely that if the global economy prospers, the benefits of rising prosperity will allow more protections and long-run job gains will outweigh the costs of short-term occupational dislocations.