In a ruthless, globally competitive market, companies can no longer afford the luxury of holding on to more employees than they need. Workers who are not contributing fully to the bottom line are let go.
Analysts predict that, in this century, employment, as we know it is likely to be phased out in industrialized nations of the world. Human labor is being systematically eliminated from the economic process. A new generation of sophisticated information and communication technologies, together with new forms of business reorganization and management, is wiping out full-time employment for millions of blue- and white-collar workers.
Manufacturing, as well as much of the service sector, is undergoing a transformation as profound as the one experienced by the agricultural sector at the beginning of the last century. We are in the early stages of a shift from mass labor to highly skilled labor, along with increasing automation in the production of goods and delivery of services.
What do these changes signify for you? More evidence that there is a new economy - one that is booming for some jobs, and devastating for others. So what about job security? What does this mean for working adults who depend on their jobs to shelter, feed and clothe their families? There is work, but it's not the same as it used to be. There are jobs, but not the same ones there were yesterday. More significantly, there is little job security these days. No one can depend on having the same job in five or ten years. Change is happening too quickly.
William Bridges in his landmark book JobShift: How to Prosper in a Workplace Without Jobs (Perseus Books, 1994), says that the job as we know it is disappearing altogether. The same work that used to require a hundred workers a few years ago can be done by fifty today, and maybe by ten tomorrow. The manufacturing sector of our economy produces five times as many goods as it did at the end of WWII with the same number of workers.
Peter Drucker estimates that the new workers who work with data instead of things, "already number at least one-third and more likely two-fifths of all employees." The socioeconomic center of the work world has already moved to computers, biotechnology and other data-based industries. According to U.S. Census and Department of Labor statistics, "more Americans work in the computer industry as a whole (equipment, semiconductors and computer services) than in the auto, auto parts, steel, mining and petroleum-refining industries combines.... More Americans work in the biotechnology than in the entire machine-tool industry.... Twice as many Americans make surgical and medical instruments as make plumbing and heating products" (Beck, 1998).
All this brings up the question of how to cope with constant job insecurity and never-ending change. What is the future of work? How do you develop a proactive and positive approach? What is the best way to make yourself into a valuable employee? Experts agree that job security lies in the person, not the position . Ask yourself what you can do to improve your chances of being appreciated as a valuable employee.
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