Skill sets

   High-volume, low-wage jobs no longer attract as many newcomers to America as they did years ago. And while it's true that people follow jobs, it's also true that jobs follow people. To some extent, people do migrate to where the jobs are, but one reinforces the other.
   When highways were built in the 1950s, city workers bought homes in the suburbs and commuted. Later, firms followed workers to the suburbs as land for updated factories became more available and truck transportation enabled them to use the road network to reach customers.
   This interchange of urban and rural is not a new phenomenon. The Industrial Revolution was preceded by an Agricultural Revolution that needed fewer farm workers to work the fields and harvest crops. These excess farm hands moved to cities, where factories took advantage of the larger labor supply.
   Social conditions also play a major role in determining where and when people move, but that's part of the economic equation.

   Why do people come to America? They come for the same reason they have always come; this is where the jobs -- fewer though they may be -- still are. If job opportunities existed where they were at home, there would be no reason to move.
   Today, as technology advances and location is less of a factor, especially in the computer networking industry, jobs and workers can be time zones or even continents apart.
   That said, skills still play a major role. America may no longer be the high-volume, low-skill, low-cost, low-wage haven for manufacturers it once was -- many of those opportunities have gone to other regions that are now lower in cost and hence lower in wages.
   But the low volume, high cost, high skill and therefore high wage opportunities remain. And these workers in turn provide more opportunities for service industries, which hire lower skill, lower wage workers.
   Adam Smith was right 250 years ago, and he's right today. America has a comparative advantage in low volume, high tech industries, and other nations have a comparative advantage in high volume, low skill and hence low wage operations.
   So everybody benefits.