Work as of recent has been undergoing the largest change to its basis since industrialization. Rising costs have forced people to innovate in different ways; office space is no longer a primary concern for large firms as the industry as a whole is moving to accommodate contract labor. With the rise of machinery, many people will also be displaced of jobs. Furthermore, as more people go to college, the bachelor’s degree is being devalued and thus not being the worthwhile investment it used to be.
Office space is an expensive luxury for large companies and the current trend shows an increase in office building vacancies. Instead of committing to workers for a long time, firms would rather contract them for a short project and then let them go after. In a short-minded aspect, this would allow the individual to make more money in a short amount of time. Long-term wise, the individual has no job security with contract jobs and there are no worker benefits available. Luxuries such as employer sponsored healthcare and retirement plans would fade away as all of the responsibilities would fall on the individual to handle them and prepare for the future.
With the rise of computer technology came the rise of many new jobs. Now technology threatens to replace many jobs that perform very repetitive tasks. Assembly lines of people are becoming a thing of the past as machines take over because they are more efficient and don’t have to be paid for other than initial cost and the occasional maintenance. The lower classes are the ones that are the most threatened by machinery and will displace a large amount of the work force that will need to be reassigned to new jobs to keep the economy in check.
In today’s world, every person coming out of high school is expected to go to college to complete their bachelor’s degree at a minimum. Societal pressures encourage this expectation. This has led to the loss of value of college degrees and people are no longer guaranteed a job after college. The issue here is that many people waste money on college on getting meaningless degrees that won’t help them at all in the job market because they are plentiful. This can be rooted at the fact that people don’t know what they want to do for the rest of their lives yet at the end of high school. In the modern era people can have multiple career changes because we live longer due to medicine and a general improvement in health.
We are currently in a period of uncertainty in the job market. The expectations that were put into the current generation’s minds of how they would carry out their working lives have been shattered but have been filled with hope for a better life and a more meaningful job. The rise of machinery will displace a large percentage of the workforce performing menial jobs and they will need to be accommodated.
Sources:
http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/515926/how-technology-is-destroying-jobs/
I feel that this whole idea that machines are taking our jobs is not fully understood. I do agree that they are taking the jobs of many people, but at the same time their existence creates many jobs. They need people to actually create, maintain, and improve these machines. This alone creates many jobs for various people within the company utilizing these machines. The company itself will end up saving a lot of money, which will end up being spent for various services. These services they request would require people to do a job, and them spending more money means more people outside that company get jobs. It also improves our society by making people work less meaningful jobs. Nobody wants to work at a factory doing a redundant job. It simply opens up people to do more meaningful work. This may be part of the reason there is a large increase in the number of people going to college. Working in a factory is no longer implies job security. So going to college to open up many other job opportunities seems much wiser. While it may make it slightly harder to receive some jobs, it makes our society as a whole more intelligent. Isn’t that better than having the majority of people doing a job that could be done by a machine?
Your first problem of office space relates to the idea of freelance work and I don’t particularly agree that it’s a problem aside from it “taking” jobs from regular employees. People should expect to not have benefits and job security; otherwise, they would be informed. As you said, these people can make more money in a short term and this is what people want, the relaxing schedule and free time. It’s only a problem when something bad happens and people will be looking for blames. I also wrote about technology’s advancement over the decades will affect the employment rate of people all over the world. Automatons will be able to perform work as quick, if not faster, than people and will be more meticulous. The only place where human can be in this assembly line career is at the end where they inspect the products and even so, people are so intelligent that they can code a machine to do the same the human is doing. I discussed your last problem in my post as well. The pressure of looking for a job immediately after graduating is overwhelming with the lack of certain skillsets and experiences. In my opinion, this problem can be alleviated if these experiences and opportunities were part of our college education.
I agree with your statements. Job security is at risk for many freelance workers and to top it off, they will be responsible for their own insurance and benefit costs. While it is good for the company, it is not good for the work force who depend on security and benefits to maintain their lifestyle. Freelance work will probably be an unpopular work choice so I don’t think that will grow too big anytime soon unless regulation is placed that returns benefits and security back to the workers. Technology is rapidly changing the work force and replacing menial labor tasks. Lower class workers who can barely support themselves cannot return to school to attain a degree after losing their job to machines. This job shortage in labor tasks will only make those workers fall behind when competing with the Bachelor’s holding people. This will only create a cycle where more people will continue to receive Bachelor’s degrees and later on PhD’s to stand out from the pool. From that point, the future of work becomes knowing the right people and shortcutting your way through to a position. This is already beginning to happen and delineates from the idea that hard work will get you far in life.