The big trade-off in the world of labor

Many people have long dreamed of becoming less chained to their workplace. Their vision is to become freer in managing their various tasks throughout the day. They especially want to better blend work and leisure. Others dream of no longer having to do monotonous, highly repetitive tasks.

If anyone needed a wake-up call about how much the world, as we know it, is changing, consider this: China betting its future on robots is certainly about the starkest signal imaginable. Part of the reason is that the size of China's labor force - long the source of existential worries in the Western world about assembly jobs being shipped to China - has peaked.

Labor market pressures are also felt elsewhere. In India, soon to be the world's most populous nation, more than 10 million new jobs are needed each year - just to find employment for new labor market entrants.