Slashdot Mirror
Me-Commerce
Long ago and far away, the idea was that stable, long-term employment once meant a bond between employer and employee. You found a good company and worked there, possibly for decades, and the company paid your bills, took care of your health, and saw you into a secure retirement. That didn't always happen, but it was the ideal of the modern industrial age, also know as the pre-Internet era. The system was both secure and paternalistic.
It's also over.
Scholars, technologists and economists have been saying for years now that we're making a transition from an industrial to an information age. Information is becoming the most valuable single commodity in the world, and the Net and the Web are the vehicles bringing more of it to more people at less cost every day.
For tech workers, according to a new study by the CDI Corporation and MIT's Sloan School of Management, new kinds of companies and new technologies like the Net are sparking a reinvention of work, a flexible kind of workplace that the study's authors call "me-commerce."
Their report shows that the number of positions filled by temporary staffing companies expanded from 1.35 million to 3.23 million between l988 and l998 -- the fastest employment growth of any industry sector during that decade.
Today, more than 25% of American workers are part-timers, independent contractors or temps, the authors explain. When contract and on-call work is included, the share of the nation's workforce operating outside traditional, full-time jobs has mushroomed to nearly 30%. In high-tech employment sectors, those numbers run much higher. Only one in three Californians holds a permanent, full-time, day-shift job working on-site.
While this shift may benefit better-educated, high-end professionals in terms of earnings, job flexibility and creative work, skilled workers have a tougher time, the study warns. They face stagnant and declining wages, alienation from their employeers and a less-certain job market.
Over the past several decades, as large amounts of capital, increased competition, new information technologies and new management philosophies and techniques have downsized large companies and created a favorable environment for start-ups, Americans have come to feel less attachment to their employers. High-tech workers don't really seem to mind; they aren't interested in lifetime employment, but creative working environments and good pay.
That suggests the boundaries between the tech and non-tech work forces are becoming more distinct, even as the former grows increasingly influential. If you know computing and technology, work in IT industries, and use the Net and the Web, you're much more likely to enter this new, affluent, mobile workforce. If you don't, you're not -- and you probably won't be nearly as content with the "flexible" work environment you've been thrust into.
The study also reminds us again that parents, educators and politicans ought to be demanding that all their kids have access to the net, rather than obsessing about pornography and pummeling schools and libraries to install blocking software.
New kinds of organizations (the MIT study calls them "guilds") are emerging to look after the needs of increasingly-mobile workers: professional associations, labor unions and staffing companies, as well as new businesses like Web-based talent brokers and headhunters, along with local employers and some government agencies.
This matters particularly because the work practices of the IT sector are setting the patterns for many kinds of work in the future, one of the ways in which the Net is driving profound and largely unacknowledged social change. Silicon Valley and the tech industry are still seen as a culture apart. But the truth is, as high-tech districts sprout all over the country -- Boston, Austin, Minneapolis, Boise, Portland, Denver, San Diego, Silicon Alley in Manhattan -- their work practices are clearly becoming the mainstream.
We're entitled to mixed feelings about whether this is a healthy trend or not. Much-in-demand mobile tech workers think it's great. They have personal freedom, full employment and a kind of rolling job security. But what if the economy were to turn downward? What if companies sharply scale back on innovation and new directions?
And what about the growing social divisions between tech and non-tech workers? Won't the latter become increasingly disconnected and angry as they're pushed into a job market where they earn less, where their job security and opportunity and benefits may evaporate at any time?
The retreat of the traditional firm and the rise of the guilds definitely mark a new phase in the history of work. What nobody knows yet is whether this new flexibility is a great step forward for individualism or another heartless Darwinian profit-making tool of the new corporation. If history is any guide, it's probably a bit of both.
[Note: to read the study yourself, CDI requires registration.]
Eventually, though, the market will mature. The dot-coms that are unrealistic will fail, and companies will find themselves saddled with more IT people than they can use. The firings will begin, and a lot of ITs (and probably a lot of /. readers) will be out on the streets.
My advice: cultivate secondary skills. Being a top-notch Perl programmer is great when it's in demand, but it won't keep you fed if you get tossed out of a job and there's no market for your obsessively-honed skills.
For tech workers, according to a new study by the CDI Corporation and MIT's Sloan School of Management, new kinds of companies and new technologies like the Net are sparking a reinvention of work, a flexible kind of workplace that the study's authors call "me-commerce."
me-commerce?
this industry has the most fucking ANNOYING acronyms.
e-this, e-that, i-this, i-that, me-commerce, information superhighway, dot in dot com, jesus christ, THEY ALL SUCK.
:\
BilldaCat
I'll admit that after the "Hellmouth" series, I got rather fed up with Katz' writings. This, however, is a more rational, sober, and thoughtful article than what we've seen recently, and worth thinking about.
The Industrial Age *IS* over, and that means a lot of concepts, some quite contrived, that went with it. Just as the Industrial Age gave us the idea of standards and mass production, now these tools give us the ability to communicate across large gaps, share information, and work faster and with less localization.
What we have now is the inevitable result - an environment allowing and even encouraging an age of change, communication, and altering arrangements. It's not something we can think of as good or bad - it is here, and it's time to live with it.
One concern Katz doesn't address in this article that should be is that some people on "this side" of the web need to adjust to changes just as those "outside" the web need access. Whole ways of thinking are outdated, and we need the mental tools to cope with the changes.
I'm a programmer and consultant, and most anything I was taught about the workplace turned irrelevant about eight years ago. It wasn't an easy adjustment, even if it was a profitable one.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Bouncing around from job to job is great when you're young and have no responsibilities other than yourself. As you get older, marry, have kids, jumping jobs becomes much more difficult. I can't just throw my guitar into the back of my Vega and 'move' to the job three states away.
/. crowd is young on average. There's a lot of college people who participate in these discussions. When I was younger, not so long ago, I always had the attitude that I was smart, adaptable, and could find a job anywhere. The same attitude that is exhibited by a lot of post I see here. While I still have the attitude that I can always find work, my exuberance has been tempered over the years. It's not that the work isn't there, it's that I have more criteria for defining 'good job'. Hours and location are much more important than before. Combine that with what most here are looking for, interesting subject matter, and jobs are really hard to find.
I'm not complaining here, just giving a different perspective. When I got out of school (doesn't everyone get their BS when they're 30 now 8*), I was offered a job 2000 miles away. The wife and kids cried for 2 weeks before I gave up and looked for a job 60 miles away. Even that was contentious. Changing jobs is just anything but easy once you build things up around you.
The
My unrequested advice to all here: Keep the future in mind. Try to build stability into your job whenever possible. Corporations have pushed the work ethic towards 'expendable employees', do whatever you can to push it back in the other direction.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
One of the interesting side topics in this kind of concept is that as individuals become valuable, it makes sense for them to attach knowledge and tools to themselves rather than the company that they're working for.
This seems to be running hand-in-hand with open source software, with the software freely available what you really need is an admin to make effective use of it, and these admins, over time, create significant collections of configuration files, perl scripts, architectures and cooperative setups which solve regular problems effectively, patterns in the system/network space.
While these are commonly available if you request them from the right place, ie the mailing list for a given app, some of this knowledge, especially in the higher-orders of multiple application performance configs, are very hard to locate and invariably require some customisation to the problem at hand.
A goodly percentage of the value a company recieves from hiring a competent administrator is their collection, either mental or digital, of configurations and architectures to solve problems.
The question is whether it will turn into a situation where employees turn up at work with a cd of their own IP, heavily tested high performance plug-in configurations and a suite of scripts in order to make themselves more attractive to potential employers, or whether there is a constant flow back to the community, where only at the very bleeding edge are the configs and scripts hard to find, and as technology moves into mainstream so the relevant information to make it work well becomes publically available.
You can't win a fight.
I've been a temp/contractor/freelancer for 10 years.
Temping/contracting is not the same thing as hopping between direct-employment jobs. Many of your concerns above just don't pertain; for instance the travel consideration. Not only do I not have move for jobs, I haven't even had to have a car. This trick, obviously, only works in dense urban areas, but then, that's where this kind of work is most pervalent.
In fact, I find it terribly ironic that you should hold up location and hours as reasons one would prefer permanent direct employment to temping. That's precisely backwards. As a temp, I can negotiate my hours -- I haven't had to show up anywhere before 10am in 4 years and ~15 clients, and I don't work more than 40 hrs in a week unless I want to -- and I'll never be relocated by my employer (you remember relocations, don't you? Back when jobs were scarce, if your boss told you "you're moving to Bismark, ND", you were moving to Bismark, ND?)
My agency offers 401(k), vacation pay and health insurance; they also offer a special program for temps who want to work as close to full-time as possible without going permanent in one job; there's some traing/education bene I've never looked into. It's just like a real job.
The only real concern is the irregularity of cash flow. That puts temps on exactly the same footing as anyone self-employed, from doctors in private practice to your neighborhood plumber.
You don't hear people lamenting that starting a business or striking up a private law practice is a terrible thing to do to your youth, now do you?
Like many career temps, I do so for life-style choices, not for big bux. It allows me much more time off (I only work half to 3/4th time over the course of the year) to pursue my art, travel and studies. I'm not getting rich doing this, but I am getting ahead. And I'm having a lot of fun.
As I am not supporting kids or spouse or (yet) mortgage or car payments, I can afford to do this. You may have or desire those such things -- but that is your life-style choice. And, indeed, those things are expensive enough to force various other life-style choices, such as how one shall work.
But see that for what it is: trade-offs. And the trade-offs each of us should make are dictated by our personal goals and values and circumstances.
Frankly, your advice is fine for the acquisitive soul who wants all the trappings of middle-class success, but for those of us "free spirits" who have other more esoteric goals, from a higher quality of life (I don't want to ever have to work full time) to more self-determination, temping can be an excellent avenue to what we want.- ---
------------------------------------------
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
I've seen examples where salaried, full-time employees make roughly half of their contracted counterparts. Granted there are no benefits, but double the salary is hard to ignore.
:-) ) for a company that had employees quit, and then immediately hired them as contractors for twice the price. (This happened multiple times.) That same company approached me to be an employee, and was surprised when I pretty much laughed at them. They just couldn't understand why they could never staff up.
Hell, I've worked (as a contracter
When I first joined the workforce in 1990, I went through about 5 layoff situations in about 2 years, luckily surviving them all.
I wasn't always so lucky, and it just goes to show how worthless the "stability" of employement is. My average tenure as an employee at any one place is a little over a year. My average contract was about two years.
There are reasons to be an employee. "Stability" is not one of them, because employer loyalty is mostly a thing of the past.
It really angers me when I see companies complain about how employees today lack loyalty. I saw a company dump an entire department, six months after saying explicitly that they would not, and then watched as a few months later, saw memos expressing confusion as to why there was so much turnover and obvious lack of loyalty in other departments.
It is stupid of them, really, and your advise is spot on. In the eighties, companies decided that cutting short-term costs was a good reason to cut jobs. "Sorry, it is just a business decision, no hard feelings". In other words, they are in it just for the bottom-line. Remember that as an employee. It is in your best interest to do the same. Work with who suits you. What you owe is labor. What you do not owe is loyalty to people who aren't loyal to you.
(One caveat: one of the few places where you can find employers with some loyalty is in smaller startups. Not they are more stable, after all, they often dump everyone all at once, but hey, they are better than some corporate beancounter cutting your job because he's too ignorant to realize that you do something critical. (That's never happened to me, but it has happened numerous times to people I've worked with!))
Sorry for rambling. I'll shut up now.
The cake is a pie
Temporary work is great in this industry, for now. Or most industries, for that matter. When things start to dry up (probably not very soon in IT, however), things aren't going to be so pretty.
There is a theory out there that the increasing polarization of wealth in the world is due in large part to this phenomena. In high demand fields like this, and other professional, highly skilled areas, people are raking in the cash. In manufacturing, or semi-skilled office work, and others, the outlook often isn't so great, where demand is average and workers are a dime a dozen.
I believe that labor unions are the main reason that the middle class is where it is today. Traditional unions are having a hard time, however, organizing temp workers in most fields. In many cases, they aren't allowed, which is technically illegal, but we know that doesn't stop corporations all the time. I've seen a few projects here in Minneapolis that were put on hold due to te corporation wanting guarantees that unions would not be formed.
Tech compaines are highly profitable, but this is part of the downside. They can get away with WAY too much. This is a significant part of their profitability. Tax breaks, land deals, and union busting/preventing. Since they bring in high paying jobs, they can get away with this (and don't forget the increasing corporate influence in Washington). Environmentally tech companies are bad as well among manufacturers of circuitboards and microelectronics. These industries use some of the worst chemicals you'll find. Take a look at the article earlier. Making companies responsible for what they make when its useful life is over? In the US, that would take an amazing effort to get such a law into place. With such a focus on profits at the expense of everything else, it isn't likely.
Agreed with the "Huh?". Before HP split into Agilent-and-HP, the proud boast that HP made "We don't lay off" was getting nibbled at for years. By 1990, the boast had to be modified to "We don't lay off permanent workers--temps don't count."
My division is/was semiconductors, one of the more notoriously cyclical industries around. Not that top management remembered this--we'd build up for the boom, business would crash, and we'd transfer people out. Come the next boom, we'd be unprepared. Again and again.
Eventually, middle management convined the Powers That Be to hire temp workers in the "less skilled" positions. Given a long enough boom, these temps would find permanent positions, either within the company, or would strike out for greener pa$tures.
At a rough guess, we were doing this bigtime starting in 1985. For the long term folks, it meant that come a crash, we didn't get the 4.5 day workweek, but it did mean that we had to spend a lot of time training the 'less skilled' people and providing continuity when someone got fed up and left. Didn't help that HP felt that contractors & temps didn't deserve to attend parties or picnics.
OTOH, Agilent seems a little more fair to temps, and we've had a bit of luck reattracting the alumni, usually to permanent jobs. I don't know the situation in HP anymore.
...if for nothing more than a stock price increase.
I'm of the opinion that nobody is reponsible for your happiness then yourself. And if you don't like your job, find your ass another one.
Personally, I don't give 2 week notices, or any of that bullshit. If I got fired, do you really think they'd give me 2 weeks to find a new job? No. And who cares about references anymore? Most places will give you a BAD reference in order to keep you working there.
I've only quit a total of two jobs, the first I gave 2 weeks notice, and was told to leave 4 days later (after telling my new employer it would be 2 weeks before I could start). Once the company found someone new, there was no need for me.
So I pretty much promised myself it wouldn't happen again. And the second time, when I got the phone call that I was hired, the very next day I brought a cardboard box, packed my things, and said good-bye on the way out.
But maybe that's just because in Michigan everybody is an at-will employee (except if you're contracted). And you can quit/be fired any time and for just about any reason (exclusions would be Fair Employment Act, etc.).
If I were to give any advice to someone coming out of school looking for work, is that you need to take a mercenary approach to things. You are there to do a job, and you expect to get paid for the work you do. You're police to coworkers, not to companies.
Hmm, I'm the CFO of a company, and we are trying to show maximum gross operating profits so that our shareholders are happy. All that matters is the gross profits.
I can hire a full-time employee at $60k/yr (I'm using Boston entry level salaries), or spend $60k on a contractor for 3 months. If it is a one-shot need, it is a wash. If I constantly need the contractor, I pay four times as much, right?
Well, not exactly. With the full-timer, I need to pay for them to keep their skills up to date, $15k/year (either classes or their learning time), soc. sec. tak, $5k/yr, benefits, say $25k/year, now I'm up to 105K/yr for the full-timer, 240K/yr for the contractor.
With the contractor, I record it as a one time expense. It affects my bottom line, but not my gross operating profit which is more interesting to investors. After all, from a business fundamental point, operating profits SHOULD matter more, unless games like this are payed.
If the business needs change, I have to lay-off full-timers, with severance, my unemployment insurance costs increase, etc. I also get my corporate name in the paper for lay-offs, etc. I record big restructuring costs while Wall Street plays wait and see.
With the contractors, I can increase labor in the short term (theoretically true in all labor, but the modern reality is that full-time help is a short-term fixed cost) and adjust to the market. With full-timers, I need to project out 2-3 years.
So, do I take a hit against "profits" to increase "net profits" or do I sacrifice net for gross?
I guess it depends what my cashflow expectancies and my ability to make aquisitions with a high stock price....
A dollar is not a dollar... what column does it go in?
Do I authorize the IT Staff to increase numbers, or do I allocate a one-time cost to get the short-term needs handled.
I know my company is using contractors and part-timers to avoid having to project our cash situation in 6-12 months which depends on financing which is variable... but YMMV.
Alex
Can we have a "stating the bleedin' obvious" department here, too? This isn't worth a long answer. Yes, it's right. Yes, MIT may have just produced a report saying it's so. No, it's not news - this has been the case for the last decade. If MIT released a study showing that the sky was blue, anyone think Jon would be posting links to that too, saying it's hot, happening news?
Grab.
The thing is, it is the employers themselves that are causing this to happen. They determine what style of worker will work for them. I've seen examples where salaried, full-time employees make roughly half of their contracted counterparts. Granted there are no benefits, but double the salary is hard to ignore.
When I first joined the workforce in 1990, I went through about 5 layoff situations in about 2 years, luckily surviving them all. That process didn't make me want to dedicate my life to this company. Once you realize that a company simply sees you as a commodity you begin to put your own situation first and if there are better offers somewhere else, take them. Loyalty is a thing of the past between employer and employee. It is a fickle relationship determined by one's salary. If you can get more elsewhere, you go there. If you can't, you stay. Same with the employer. If they can get someone just as good for less, say goodbye. Don't feel bad about it, just realize it and plan your career accordingly. Of course I am generalizing, but this has been consistent with my experiences.
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
``Temporary staffing positions have tripled in the last decade, according to an MIT/CDI study, which suggests IT workpractices are mainstreaming, spreading well beyond Silicon Valley.''
Is it just me or does anyone else fail to see the correlation here? This is like saying ``rabbits eat carrots therefore nanotube technology is booming.''
Personally I think it's kinda obvious that IT positions are spreading beyond the Silicon Valley. It's called the ``internet''. Perhaps more temporary staffing positions are being used because more and more postions are being opened up and there's not enough qualified people to fill them. Either that or the companies are to cheap to pay qualified people. In either case we're just watching our field evolve.
IMHO, it would be interesting to hop from job to job . . . it would keep things interesting. That is, as long as there are jobs to go to. Could be for the better, could be for the worse. Only time will tell.
``We are the people our parents warned us about.''