“Mummy, what’s a job?” – The future of employment
or Daddy?…There was a time in history when no one had a job as we think of it. It was only in the last century that the modern concept of a “job” as work exchanged for wages and benefits was invented.
In the past three decades the social and economic fabric that created this employment system has frayed and now is rending before our eyes. Around the world floods of young people face economies in which there may never be a sufficient number of jobs by the standard definition. In older industrialised nations the ability of employers to pay both good wages and benefits is increasingly challenged. Employment has gone completely global. The acceleration of technology has meant that fewer people are required for many tasks.
So what will become of employment in the next twenty to fifty years? Any quick search will offer lists of exotic-sounding jobs of the future – gene pharmers, space tour guides, body part makers, Hollywood holographers, and the like. Such lists are entertaining. They may even be accurate. But they miss the deeper story of the future of employment.
read on
In the future, people will work “stints” rather than “jobs”, writes Glen Hiemstra for HumanResourcesMagazine.com
