Employment and the workplace are shifting, and so are the notions we have of them. Furthermore, it is believed that during the twenty years to come we shall witness the biggest employment changes.

Some of the most important shifts are the ones we mention below.

Increasing automation: a growing number of jobs may disappear in the near future or be developed by machines and computers. Though this is not necessarily a bad thing, as it may prevent humans from doing dangerous or repetitive jobs, the question remains about what will be done with the unskilled workforce in order to avoid chronic unemployment.

Microbusinesses and self-employment: more and more people from all around the globe are turning to self-employment. As a matter of fact, there are about 1.2 million self-employment micro­-enter­prises. On top of that, about 564,000 businesses employ four people or fewer.

According to the World Bank, around 24% of people who work in Latin America are self-employed and almost 5% are employers.

This is a positive situation, particularly considering that the world is changing faster than ever and this type of business may adapt better and faster. There are small businesses or entrepreneurs that cluster to do bigger projects. Once the goal is achieved, they go back to their previous size.

Actually, several global thinkers are starting to predict the death of giant corporations.

Redundancy is turning into a sort of employment in between jobs. People are using redundancy payments as a mean to retrain and plan their next move.

The working life shall become longer: the lower increase of working age people makes experts analyse the possibility of making people remain in the workforce for longer or to increase the working age population by promoting immigration. The retirement income needs of ageing populations is a rather challenging issue.

Work-life balance: it may be the beginning of some serious thinking on work-life balance, which includes working, having spare time to relax, and relating with other people.

Continuous change: organizational structures evolve and several employees must be constantly working on developing new projects and ideas. Therefore, change has to be considered as a key and mandatory issue in every organization.

Multi-jobs: Lots of workers have several jobs at the same time, a situation that may be considered as positive if we take into account that people are offered variety. Furthermore, there are times in which economies are not fit to satisfy the demand of full time jobs. Multi-jobs may be an alternative.

Mobile office: thanks to technology, a large number of people may work from a wide range of places: coffee shops, at home, airports, while travelling, etc. The classic office is no longer the rule and this is a trend that shall continue to develop.

Source: The Australian