I’ve been pondering the so-called Jobless Recovery. Like many of you, I am wondering what the jobs of tomorrow will look like in the United States, with manufacturing essentially off-shored, most businesses contracting, and only a few industries like health care and some sectors of technology enjoying job creation.

Our unemployment rate keeps climbing (9.8% in September, 2009) and the published rates don’t take into account those who have simply stopped looking for employment or those who are underemployed. The recession has claimed 4,804,642 jobs since its start in December of 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Surely when businesses are in the position of hiring again, they will tap those who have been laid off and increase the hours of those current employees who have had to take ‘furloughed’ hours or otherwise compress their work schedules.

Even the health care industry has not been immune to downsizing, layoffs and restructuring. Just this week I read about a large health care system in Chicago that is undertaking a layoff of over 300 employees. And this particular layoff is just the latest of many in the health care arena this year. What impact health care reform will have on health care employment remains to be seen and impossible to predict until we have a much better idea of what shape that reform will take. Realistically, though, reform could transform the health care employment landscape and not necessarily for the better.

All of these factors sparked an interest in me to re-read a book, written in the 90s, called Job Shift. When I opened it and read the first chapter I realized elements of it could have been written last week. The author, William Bridges, says this: “Today’s organization is rapidly being transformed from a structure built out of jobs to a field of ‘work needing to be done’.” Bridges comments further that “jobs are artificial units superimposed on this field.” He also notes that the concept of ‘jobs’ arose with the Industrial Revolution to meet the needs of a new type of workplace and that currently we are undergoing another transformation involving ‘dejobbing’.

Dejobbing is a result of many factors, including the technology revolution, which has rendered entire classifications of jobs obsolete. This holds true from manufacturing, where robotics have become common, to retail sales, which is increasingly being done online. A trip to a major department store these days in often a lonely exercises, with few shoppers and even fewer sales staff. Bookstores are increasingly empty while Amazon thrives. Online shopping is more convenient, usually quicker and you can most often get exactly what you want without spending hours browsing. What’s not to like?

Another impact factor is the tremendous number of mergers in all industries in the past couple of decades. Remember when Delta and Northwest were two separate airlines? FedEx and UPS? When Chicago had both Marshall Field AND Macy’s? There are countless examples just like these and every merger results in fewer staff in the merged company.

The lust for productivity also is a factor here. American workers are the most productive in the world. We work longer hours and more days with fewer vacation days than just about any industrialized country. Try foisting our work schedules on anyone in France or Italy. But increased productivity drives profits, despite the effect on the workforce. If you can do the same work with fewer people, why not?

Another factor is the rise in temporary employment, which has occurred over the past couple of decades. Total outsourcing of the entire employee component is now a real possibility.

Also, jobs are becoming more fluid, with job descriptions constantly evolving as responsibilities change to meet company needs. This requires a nimble and accommodating workforce.

With all these changes, what will our jobs look like in the near future? What will happen to those who have been victims of the massive layoffs in the past year? We have been talking about retraining for years, but there does not appear to be any national initiative to analyze where jobs will be in the future and how we can train laid-off workers to fill those jobs. In some industries, because of rapid technology changes and other factors, we don’t even know what the jobs of the future will be.

And how do we advise our children who are preparing to go to college? What majors should they take and what kind of careers will be there for them in the future? These are not rhetorical questions. I am increasingly concerned that the future of work is at stake.

At the moment, at this point in 2009, the hot industries appear to be health care, green industries, government and technology. But I wouldn’t hitch my wagon to any of these stars in looking to the future.

Crystal ball, anyone?

This entry was posted on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 2:21 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.