11. Jobseekers struggle to find full-time employment
Full-time jobs are being replaced with part-time jobs because employers want the flexibility to hire and fire, to balance their books, and to be able to react quickly to the ever-changing environment.
The Economic Policy Institute noted that there is an ongoing structural shift toward more intensive use of part-time employment. This has driven up the rate of involuntary part-time work.
A quote from Conditionally Accepted, “I’m starting to think that people who land full-time jobs are in the minority and that this trend will continue as more full-time jobs are replaced with part-time jobs.”
In the US, 94% of the 10 million new jobs created during the Obama era were temporary positions. The magazine Investing reported that people working in temporary jobs has increased from 10.7% of the population to 15.8%.
Since December 2015, the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that full-time employment in Australia has fallen by 56,900 persons. In comparison, part-time employment has increased by 125,100 persons over the same period, from 31.1% to 32.0%.
According to LifeHacker, approximately 11.9 million Australians are currently employed, which is the largest number on record. However, just 8.2 million of these workers (or 68.94%) are in full-time employment, which is the lowest level on record.
We are already at the point where there are not enough full-time jobs for everybody who wants them. Competition for full-time employment will increase as the number of full-time jobs significantly decreases. When the number of job seeker increases, wages stagnate or decrease! It’s purely supply and demand.
12. Jobseekers can be left in the lurch by employers
Jobseekers can ‘drop off the grid’ whereby prospective employers suddenly cut ties without warning or explanation.
Employers can alienate job candidates due to poor communication during the recruitment process, avoid delivering bad news, sudden changes to recruiting requirements, or keeping candidates as a back-up option in case other preferred candidates fall through.
13. Freelancers are taking full-time employee’s jobs
When 57 million Americans or one-third of the US workforce have declared their independence from their employers, we can no longer deny or ignore that freelancers and contractors will be taking away the full-time jobs of employees.
Nearly 50% of skilled freelancer workers specialise in providing professional services including categories such as consulting, management, legal, video editing, advertising, marketing, and educational services.
Much of this is driven by shifting labor demographics — from Millennials avoiding the 9-to-5 life and Boomers who aren’t ready for retirement. Family-minded professionals are also opting for flexible employment.
14. Outsourcers are taking full-time employee’s jobs
Every business is constantly looking to cut their operating costs (including human resource cost). For many, that means outsourcing their non-primary or critical functions to other companies or even other countries.
The global business process outsourcing (BPO) services market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 11% during the forecast period 2017 to 2023.
The rapid increase in the adoption of BPO services in IT and telecommunication sectors is a major factor responsible for the proliferation of the BPO market.
Furthermore, the adoption of BPO services across banking, finance and human resource services is gaining momentum and reducing the availability of jobs for local job seekers.
15. Evolving business and regulatory environment
Constant regulatory changes and shifts do affect employee wage levels, either directly (such as minimum wages or Social Security entitlements) or indirectly (such as more public income assistance or universal basic income). It also affects the cross-border flow of goods, services, and capital.
Employees are therefore susceptible to these constant regulatory changes initiated or imposed by Governments.
16. Technology is changing employees’ jobs
Technology and automation have challenged our assumption that every able-bodied adult should have a full-time job. They are destroying and creating jobs faster than some workers can adapt.
New technologies are replacing human labour, threatening employment (such as driverless trucks). They are also augmenting or supplementing human labour (for example, robots in health care).
The Brookings Institution looked at the digital content of jobs across the US It found that digitalisation levels increased in 517 out of 545 occupations (or 90% of the economy) between 2002 and 2016. According to an academic publication by the Oxford Martin School, around 47% of all US jobs are at risk of being automated and replaced by robots.
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics published a list of the fastest declining occupations, which showed how some trades will be nearly extinct by 2026.
According to PwC, by the early 2030s, approximately 38% of all US jobs could be replaced by artificial intelligence and automation. That’s higher than the U.K. (30%), Germany (35%), and Japan (21%).
Deloitte found that 35% of U.K. jobs are at high risk from automation over the next two decades.
The Committee for Economic Development of Australia found that more than five million jobs or almost 40% of Australian jobs have a moderate to a high likelihood of disappearing in the next 10 to 15 years due to technological advancements. Infosys’ research found that 37% of respondents admitted that their organisations had made positions redundant because of artificial intelligence deployment.
According to The Conversation, as technology advances, young Australian jobseekers will bear the brunt of changes in the labor market and will face a dystopian future.
The World Economic Forum reported that 65% of children entering primary school today will ultimately end up working in completely new job types that don’t yet exist. More than 5.1 million jobs could be lost to disruptive labor market changes over the period 2015 to 2020, with a total loss of 7.1 million jobs.
The McKinsey Global Institute found that up to 375 million people, comprising 14% of the global workforce, will have to shift to a new occupation since their old one will either no longer exist or need far fewer workers.
McKinsey estimated that between 400 million and 800 million individuals could be displaced by automation and need to find new jobs by 2030. Of the total displaced, 75 million to 375 million may need to switch occupational categories and learn new skills.
Research in partnership with the National Business Research Institute found that artificial intelligence has penetrated mainstream business at a high rate. 61% of big organisations said they had implemented some form of artificial intelligence in their business operations, up from 38% in 2016.
17. Technology micromanage employees work tasks
Technology has intensified warehouse and supply chain work by limiting the amount of human interaction and allowing the micromanagement and control of worker work tasks at an unprecedented scale and rate.
It has dissected and analysed every movement with sensors that measure the time it takes a worker to reach a location where they can pick up an item, scan a label, select a product, and place it in a bin.
All information collected is tracked and benchmarked. It is used to inform workers about their performance in real time. It also measures, compares, and benchmarks them against the performance of their colleagues.
The information will increasingly be used to set more aggressive performance targets that forces workers to work harder and faster and in competition with their colleagues.
The unprecedented granularity, accuracy, and completeness of this performance information have the potential to significantly pressure or force workers to perform their tasks more quickly and accurately. This will increase the stress levels experienced by workers.
Technology can increase human productivity in the short-run. But in the long-run, there is a high likelihood that the use of technology can and will run workers into the ground.
The productivity gains from streamlining processes and cost reductions are counteracted by new health and safety hazards as well as increasing employee turnover due to overwork, stress, and burnout. It can cause more mental health issues for employees and workers.
18. Automation puts pressure on employee to work faster
Technology is putting pressure on employees to work harder, faster, and under more scrutiny.
Businesses like Amazon are introducing one-day shipping as a business response to their customers’ needs. This means that everything has to be moving at a faster pace – all at a price, of course!
This puts tremendous pressure on everyone to perform at a higher level of performance just to meet this business requirement.
To assist in this process, Amazon has introduced workplace games where employees race against each other to fill customer orders through a virtual competition that mirrors their real-life packing rates.
Comparisons and benchmarking of worker performance will only increase. This will cause significant undue pressure and stress on workers.
19. Employers puts pressure on workers to work faster
The business model of food delivery app companies has exacerbated the risks to worker safety. Workers working as delivery riders are zipping through the streets on scooters and bikes and are being killed or seriously injured. This is the unfortunate human cost of the cheap eats gig economy.
There is tremendous pressure from management to perform within promised timeframes and hungry customers who want their food warm and fast.
These workers’ lives are put at risk on the streets as they are pressured to drive fast and break road rules. If they do not get killed or injured, they may be terminated for being late.
Unlike a traditional job, these gig economy workers don’t get paid a fixed salary. More food deliveries mean higher take-home pay – so, it’s no wonder these riders choose to rush and put lives at risks.
The nature of the job is that demand for food deliveries will increase in rainy weather, when hungry customers don’t want to go outside. That means couriers are battling slippery streets and poor visibility to deliver a hot meal within short timeframes. Add that to the fact that a busy time for dinner deliveries coincides with peak-hour traffic on the roads, and it’s safe to say riders have a risky job.
20. Technology collects personal performance data
The use of technology has increasingly raised questions about worker data privacy rights. Large amounts of performance information have been collected, knowingly or unknowingly, by employers for productivity improvements.
Workers have a right to know how the information collected is going to be used.
For example, this information could be used to feed AI machines behind new autonomous warehouse machines. This could mean that workers may unwittingly be training their own replacements in the future!