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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.
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BilldaCat
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
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.