Three Categories

As mentioned Reich breaks up labor into three categories: routine production workers, in-person service workers, and symbolic analysts. These jobs are different than blue and white-collar because they are not broken up into manual and physical labor. The new categories may be more relevant today because there is much less focus on manual labor.

This is my interpretation of the categories: Routine production workers can be manual laborers, but they deal more with everyday tasks such as assembling boxes or filing reports. In-person service workers deal with presentation of the company from making sure the building is clean to greeting customers. Symbolic analysts are more behind the scenes and deal with product development and business models. Here the roles are just manual/physical, they have more to do with what part the worker plays in the company.

The inequalities among these categories are similar to blue and white-collar jobs though. Routine production workers and in-person service workers do not have to have great thinking skills or advanced computer skills, whereas symbolic analysts do. And people in these advanced jobs mostly acquire their thinking and computer skills from a good education. People in low-income families (who are often minorities) frequently do not have access to an adequate education system that would allow them to obtain a job other than a routine production worker or in-person service worker. Also, in order to be a software engineer, for example, you have to go to college, which low-income or minorities can’t afford—the tuition or the opportunity costs. Because of this lack of advancement, people get stuck in a poverty cycle.