Technology Is Changing the Way We Work - Essay Example

13th, April, 2016

Technology is changing the Way we Work

Introduction

It will be possible to order by telephone, goods and services from anywhere in the world while we are going about our daily business at work, home, in the car or from elsewhere. Technology will make this possible and make life easier. Technology is the set of skills and techniques applied innovatively to come up with solutions for society and it continues to evolve day by day. The advance of technology causes significant changes in the economic sector and 20 years from now there will even be greater changes. Among these changes will be increased offshoring which will take place through foreign direct investment or through external outsourcing. Digital technology will be one of the main drivers of economic change causing migration of goods, services and jobs. There will be a growing trend of job erosion, whereby work will move from rich to poor countries leading to a reduction in job opportunities for college graduates in the rich nations. A college education will no longer guarantee a well-paid job because there will be increased educated workers scrambling for fewer opportunities, offshoring of jobs abroad and the technology revolution where machines will replace humans. Therefore, there will be need for college students to increase career perspectives through choices such as building relevant market skills, networking, adopting a new learning system and seeking alternatives to getting employed.

Why college education will not guarantee me a well-paying job

In 20 years’ time, college education will not translate to a prestigious job for me because the market will be flooded with educated individuals. Cases of joblessness will be on the rise because probably everyone of college-attending age will have college education. Employers will be seeking additional skills rather than technical expertise (Krugman 1996) and people skills will be more important than computer skills (Blinder 2006). With the technology revolution, information will no longer be a limiting factor and people will be able to access it rather easily and cheaply. This means that many more people will also acquire whatever knowledge I will acquire. Much of what will be taught in colleges will also be found online which means that there will be a great supply of information, reducing its price (Kruger 1996). Reduction in market value for information will mean that I will no longer be hired for what I know but rather for my intelligence and innovativeness. Finding a job will no longer be about what I learnt in class but a demonstration of what else I can bring to the table, something that gives me an edge over others seeking a similar position.

Even with the unique skills for a job, another reason I will not be guaranteed a job is that what I will be taught in college will not tally with new job demands. I will not be well prepared for the jobs that will exist in the market, making me miss those opportunities. Just as the industrial revolution marked a reduction of jobs in the agricultural sector and led to an increase of jobs in the manufacturing sector, the new revolution called the “technology revolution” will shift career opportunities. New opportunities will be created in other sectors such as technology, professional services, and media, therefore I will not secure employment, unless am well-prepared for this new crop of jobs. I will have gained a good college education but with nowhere to apply it. Some unskilled workers with more experience in the new sectors might have better chances of landing the jobs I will be seeking.

With improved technology, better education and increased offshore businesses, in 20 years’ time jobs will move from developed to developing nations. High literacy and numeracy rates due to wider access to education and advances in technology will lead to a high productive labour force in developing nations (Duanmu 2016c), seeking employment. The rise in educated populations in developing countries will cause loss of jobs in developed countries because industries will prefer the low wage labour in the former (Blinder 2006). Low wage labour will be one of the factors that will create comparative advantage in trade between countries thus encouraging offshoring. About 1 Million service-sector jobs were lost in the US due to offshoring (Blinder 2006). Technology will expand tradable services, meaning more and more services will be exchanged among countries, causing even more shipping of jobs. This will especially be true for impersonal services that do not require workers to be there in person to deliver services. Offshoring will reduce my chances of getting a well-paying job.

Technology will enable production of more goods with less labor leading to a cut in number of people employed. Krugman 1996 noted that people consume goods, not information and therefore with increased per capita income and rising demand for goods, more jobs will better be done by machines rather than humans. This replacement of human resource with machines will create a huge job loss. The World Economic Forum estimated that over 5 Million jobs would be lost in the world’s leading economies by 2020 due to technological changes. In 20 years’ time this figure will be much higher, reducing any guarantees of a job. Some government policies will also affect the job market (Duanmu 2016b) and put jobs at risk through their interventions that will enable industries to reduce their spending and invest in more cost effective technologies. Regional integration will also promote access to new technology (Bah 2016b) which when applied will lead to job loss due to flooding of market by people with similar credentials or people being replaced by machines.

Choices that might increase my career perspectives

I would endeavor to build out of class skills that can make me stand out in the job market and make me competitive in the face of technology. It would not only be important for me to be tech savvy but it equally important for me to be creative and innovative, skills which machines and robots cannot acquire (Krugman 1996). Creativity would incorporate different ways of achieving results easily and faster and would require a multi-disciplinary approach and use of common sense. Having a unique set of skills would make me indispensable even when other colleagues’ jobs were at risk. One important skill in the workplace could be learning a foreign language that could make me an asset when it comes to tasks like marketing or negotiating with foreign partners. Creativity and innovation will help me to not only keep my job but also to progress faster in my career because these skills will ultimately contribute to the comparative advantage of a company or firm.

Networking might also be a smart way of increasing my career perspectives especially in a world where information technology will make it possible to easily connect to many places and many people with just the click of a button. The world will become flat and borderless (Duanmu 2016a) with globalization, meaning distance will no longer matter. The global community will share in many ways, including use of common languages and common currencies making it easier to transact both online and offline. Platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and Twitter and other new ones that will come up will be useful in connecting me to potential game changing personalities and help me in following trends in job markets. These platforms will allow more people to access my profile and endorse me for my skills. Information passed on these platforms will enable me to make smart career moves in line with existing opportunities.

To improve career perspectives, I would also adopt a new way of learning and focus on the knowledge and skills that match what employers will be looking for. Blinder 2006 suggested a change in the way learning will be undertaken in colleges so that workers-to-be will be well prepared for the jobs that will exist in the market. The service sectors will increasingly become important (Bah 2016a) but at the same time, most impersonal services will increasingly be shipped abroad. I therefore will shift concentration away from careers that are at risk to careers such as the ones in personal services industries that require face-to-face interaction with consumers and are at less risk of being shipped. This will increase my chances of landing jobs in my desired fields. I will also shift my after-college objectives from seeking employment to becoming an employer. Such a shift in mentality would lead to job creation in my area of expertise instead of joblessness.

To increase my career perspectives, I would also look at the alternatives that exist to still do something meaningful in the absence a job. It may help to try different opportunities either in or out of my career field. Being proactive, remaining open minded and trying my hand at different things may improve learning and increase my chances at getting a job. Some activities I will be engaged in include volunteering, joining relevant organizations (Barratt, 2014) or even starting up a small business. Like Krugen advised, I can make a living doing something else, and pursue scholarly work as a hobby (1996). I must also be prepared for the eventuality of not landing the jobs I desire and start looking at other alternatives to being employed. Technology here will play a key role because I may utilize it to implement innovative business ideas which will eventually lead to creation of jobs. I might also consider a blue-collar job as an entry point and work my way up to a white-collar job.

Conclusion

Technology is changing and will continue to change the way we work within and between countries, bringing both negative and positive economic changes. Digital technology will promote the production of goods abroad, otherwise known as offshoring. Technology will also promote education levels and access to information in poor countries, giving rise to a highly educated work force. Given the low wage labor that will be available in these poor countries, offshoring will see the erosion of jobs from rich to poor countries, especially in the service sector. College education will no longer guarantee me a well-paid job because of this erosion, in addition to the technology revolution that will see computers and other machines take the place of human resource. There will also be a lack of the proper set of skills by graduates which can make them stand out from other non-skilled laborers.

Some of the choices that might increase my career perspectives include acquisition of strategic skills by which cannot be replaced by machines or other low wage workers, networking via social platforms to keep me up to date with potential employers and trends in my areas of expertise. I will also consider adoption of a new education system to prepare me for jobs that will exist and consideration for other alternatives to jobs seeking such as self-employment using the knowledge I will have gained in class or pursuing other relevant courses such as volunteering.