With copious funding from corporate and venture-capitalists for commercialization, these research labs have made enormous contributions not just to technology but to the economy as well; including the creation of millions of high-paying jobs.

For example, Bell Laboratories (or Bell Labs) is the research and development organization of Alcatel-Lucent and AT&T. Their man-made marvels equally led to bringing better lives to all: invention of transistors, photovoltaic cell, Unix operating system, C++ programming, the first wireless local area network (WaveLAN), 56K modem, and the cellular technology. Without discovering such, where will the likes of Motorola, Xerox, or Cisco be? And where will we be without their mobile phones, photocopy and facsimile machines?

What started in the past continues today. America exported high-paying jobs to low-wage countries. We have stopped creating new high-paying jobs. But we should not underestimate the magnitude of creating more jobs. Outsourcing and extended recessions are not just the factors why there are stiff choices in the job market today. There is also the pressure of “value migration” or the the creation of new business models. What companies should realize is that economic situations like recessions should not overhaul how a company does business, but instead befit the situation to the company’s current needs. Again, you have to research and gather data before you lay-off employees. In fact, even in recession, there are companies that remain triumphant.

“Of the roughly 130 million jobs in the U.S., only 20% (26 million) pay more than $60,000 a year. The other 80% pay an average of $33,000. That ratio is not a good foundation for a strong middle class and a prosperous society. Rather than a demand engine, it’s a decay curve. As a nation, we have papered over our declining incomes by accepting the need for two incomes per household and by borrowing heavily, often against paper assets inflated by financial bubbles (dot-com and housing). In recent years, personal debt has grown much faster than personal income. In 1985 the ratio of household debt to household income was 0.7 to 1; in 2000 it was 1 to 1; in 2008, it was 1.7 to 1. We earned less, so we borrowed more. In 2007 we reached our limit.” — Adrian Slywotzky, a partner at management consultants Oliver Wyman, and has written books on profitability and growth (BusinessWeek).

A company’s success, so to speak, is driven by products or services widely appreciated and favored by the mass. When more people appreciates, more people buys and therefore create an exceptional contribution to the economic growth.

For instance, cars and petroleum boomed in the 1920s, movies and radio in the 1930s, appliances and television in the 1950s, pharmaceuticals in the 1960s, PCs in the 1980s, and the Internet and cellular technology in the 1990s. These era made exponential contribution to the economy as well as to those employed and job seekers.

So what about 2000? Alternative energy, biofuels? Green living? Nanotechnology? These are the words in the market, so why not these become a source of new employment to millions of job seekers. Why not fulfill the 15 to 17 million high-paying new jobs as estimated by economists. Do more research on these and maybe, it will materialize and thus will create more work for us all.