Ethics Newsline®

WASHINGTON
Minority rights and high-tech know-how will be the dominant workplace issues in the next half-century, the U.S. Labor Department said last week in a new report on predicted job trends.

The report, detailing expected changes to the U.S. workplace by the year 2050, warns that a massive influx of minority workers will substantially alter workplace demographics in the United States.

Currently, one-fourth of U.S. workers belong to minority groups; by 2050, that proportion is expected to skyrocket to one-half, the Associated Press reported.

“When one out of two workers will be a person of color,” warned Labor secretary Alexis Herman, “pay discrimination, lingering gaps in skills, opportunity, and jobs matter to us all.”

The report also projects that a continuing boom in high-tech jobs will require more educated workers, that workers will demand more flexible schedules, and that disabled people will become better integrated into the U.S. workplace, according to the AP.