Work takes up such a huge chunk of our lives: the average person spends about a third of their adult life at work. A topic that has been controversial in the past few years is the efficiency of the traditional workplace environment. Most people need long stretches of uninterrupted time to truly focus and get substantial work done. However, company employees often face a great number of distractions in the one place where they are expected be the most productive – the office. Jason Fried proposes that the main problems are the M&Ms, or meetings and managers [1]. While managers are there to ensure that everything is running smoothly, they more often than not disturb their employees’ productivity. Meetings, although important in keeping employees up-to-date, usually do not need to last as long as they do. They are traditionally held in 15-minute intervals and have a set formal structure, when really only several minutes are necessary to convey the desired information. Thus, it is time to rethink the traditional office workspace into a more flexible system where individuals take personal responsibility for their workload. Managers shouldn’t have to provide that sense of constant security and babysitting if workers are trusted to manage themselves [2].
We as college students would like to think that there is a job lined up for us after we graduate. This is simply not the reality, as showcased by the myriad graduates who didn’t have much luck finding work [5]. In a society where competition for internships and jobs only gets fiercer with passing time, many college graduates are having an extremely hard time securing a job after they graduate. The increasing trend is that supply exceeds demand in the labor market. A saddening 20% of graduates eventually give up pursuing a position in their desired career and are forced to settle for a job outside of their chosen field of study in order to pay off their college debt [4]. This is a huge problem. Why go through the process of obtaining a degree if, at the end of it all, you will be stuck at a job that is outside of your major and for which you are overqualified?
It has been predicted that robots, software, and smart machines will replace a third of human workers by the year 2025 [6]. Artificial intelligence and automation are quickly entering a great range of different professions, such as lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, and scientists [9]. Although this is fascinating news, there is evidence that these technologies will have a negative impact on the job market. Machines are capable of doing more work than the average human, for a longer period of time, come at less of a cost, and don’t require care benefits. Although initially not incredibly knowledgable, they learn and recognize patterns quickly and, as a result, become more “intelligent”. Hence, businesses are more inclined to opt for a robot workforce instead of a human one. Middle-skilled jobs – those that only require some training – are in the most danger of being replaced entirely by machines, since they consist of repetitive, organizational tasks [9]. Many labor economists, however, believe the data doesn’t necessarily point to the lack of job growth in the past decade [8]. Nonetheless, it is undoubtable that automation and artificial intelligence will continue having a huge impact on the job market.
References:
[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/jason_fried_why_work_doesn_t_happen_at_work
[2] http://qz.com/297041/the-three-essential-skills-youll-need-to-survive-the-future-of-work/
[3] http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/05/18/job-outlook-2014-graduates/8809801/
[4] http://www.forbes.com/sites/thecollegebubble/2014/08/15/overqualified-and-underemployed-the-job-market-waiting-for-graduates/
[5] http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/dec/27/graduating-debt-no-job-lost-generation
[6] http://www.computerworld.com/article/2691607/one-in-three-jobs-will-be-taken-by-software-or-robots-by-2025.html
[7] https://hbr.org/2014/12/what-happens-to-society-when-robots-replace-workers
[8] http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/515926/how-technology-is-destroying-jobs/
[9] http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/robot_invasion/2011/09/will_robots_steal_your_job.html
