At the beginning of the twentieth century, ninety out of every hundred people in the working population in every country were manual workers, farmers and their hired hands, domestic servants, factory workers, miners, or construction workers.
And life expectancies, especially work-life expectancies, were so low that a majority of working people were disabled well before they reached what was then the threshold of old age, that is, age fifty.
But while the life expectancy of the individual and especially the individual knowledge worker has risen beyond anything anybody could have foretold at the beginning of the twentieth century.
２０世紀のはじめには、労働力の９０％が肉体労働者だった。農民、作男、家事使用人、工員、坑夫、建設労働者だった。
彼らの労働寿命は短く、当時高齢とされていた５０歳まで働けるものは半分もいなかった。
しかしこの労働寿命が、２０世紀に入ってから想像を超える伸びを示した。特に知識労働者の労働寿命の伸びが著しかった。
life expectancies：平均寿命、平均余命
foretold：予言
Thus, while the life expectancies and especially the working-life expectancies of the individual and especially of the knowledge worker have been expanding very rapidly, the life expectancy of the employing organizations has actually been going down.
And—in a period of very rapid technological change, of increasing competition because of globalization, of tremendous innovation—the successful life-expectancies of employing institutions are almost certain to continue to go down.
組織に働く者、特に知識労働者の労働寿命は急速に伸びる一方で、雇用主たる組織の平均寿命は一貫して短くなっていった。
しかも急激な技術的変化、グローバル化に伴う競争激化、イノベーションの時代にあって、組織が成果を上げ続けることのできる期間は短くなる一方である。
tremendous：ものすごい、すさまじい、途方もない、すてきな
create:2016/11/28