NOWADAYS, DEMOGRAPHY AND TECHNOLOGY ARE PERHAPS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT FACTORS AFFECTING THE LABOR RESOURCES MARKET. THE IDEAS OF "GOOD" AND FLEXIBLE WORK, THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN PARTICIPATION IN MANY AREAS ARE BEING RETHOUGHT, AND THE PESSIMISM OF YOUNG GENERATIONS IS GROWING.
Time to change
Not only new professions are emerging, but the operational model of the business is also changing. Fewer full–time workers and more part-time workers will probably be needed. These may be students, young mothers, homeworkers working only for one or several employers. A large proportion of business functions that do not create a clear competitive advantage for companies will be outsourced: accounting, HR, IT, lawyers, procurement, data analysis, etc. Installations for guaranteed jobs, involving social bene‑ts, pension contributions, high involvement in the company's aairs, will be pushed into the background. According to various estimates, employers can save up to 60% of the payroll on freelancers. In 15–20 years, in industries with a design principle, 70% of the work will be performed by "contract workers", and the number of permanent stawill be 10–15% of the current one.
It is expected that in the next 8–10 years, virtual reality technologies for business will be debugged. Now 30– 80% of top managers' time is spent on organizational issues and purchases, in the future they will spend their precious time on sales, strategy development and new products. Technologies will no longer work with physical objects – they will interact with digital counterparts of real factories and equipment. Following the change of generations, motivational preferences will also change. For today's youth, it is no longer so important to own apartments, cars and other property. Interest in corporate careers and full-time jobs is also noticeably declining. In search of a better life and development opportunities, labor mobility will increase. Wandering and moving will become the new norm. New hyperclusters will also appear – centers of concentration of talented people, similar to Silicon Valley; elite settlements and reservations will be formed.
Recruitment and education
Recruitment will become more fiexible. There will be expert online platforms with hundreds of experts, among whom it will be possible to find any specialist – up to a retired and living in Australia, a leading engineer of a coke chemical plant. Such platforms are actively developing right now, the largest – American GLG with a turnover of about $ 350 million per year – unites 500,000 experts. The use of artificial intelligence to build predictive models for evaluating candidates is not far off.
According to MGI estimates, by 2030, about 200–350 million workers worldwide (8–14% of the employed) will be forced to change their specialty due to automation, digitalization, the growth of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Continuously changing technologies will increase the demand for continuous retraining and professional development of employees.
Some analysts believe that the training system is also being transformed. A person will be responsible for the orientation, design of the training, and the training itself will be carried out by machines – online. The times when the knowledge gained at the institute was enough for a person to retire are in the past. Education will be continuous, the possibility of education will become part of the reward system, an important non-monetary bonus. And money will be less important than it is now – services and high-quality food will play an increasingly important role.
One should not expect that everyone will be able to successfully change their routine specialty to a more creative one. Alas, a person simply may not have enough abilities. Implantation of chips with knowledge bases, as in modern science ‑ction novels, is quite possible in the future 20–30 years. According to international surveys, more than 70% of workers will not refuse to take medications to stimulate mental and physical activity if it increases their employment prospects. Society will easily be able to feed the extra people, but it will not be able to occupy them – and this is a huge problem.
Not only new professions are emerging, but the operational model of the business is also changing. Fewer full–time workers and more part-time workers will probably be needed. These may be students, young mothers, homeworkers working only for one or several employers. A large proportion of business functions that do not create a clear competitive advantage for companies will be outsourced: accounting, HR, IT, lawyers, procurement, data analysis, etc. Installations for guaranteed jobs, involving social bene‑ts, pension contributions, high involvement in the company's aairs, will be pushed into the background. According to various estimates, employers can save up to 60% of the payroll on freelancers. In 15–20 years, in industries with a design principle, 70% of the work will be performed by "contract workers", and the number of permanent stawill be 10–15% of the current one.
It is expected that in the next 8–10 years, virtual reality technologies for business will be debugged. Now 30– 80% of top managers' time is spent on organizational issues and purchases, in the future they will spend their precious time on sales, strategy development and new products. Technologies will no longer work with physical objects – they will interact with digital counterparts of real factories and equipment. Following the change of generations, motivational preferences will also change. For today's youth, it is no longer so important to own apartments, cars and other property. Interest in corporate careers and full-time jobs is also noticeably declining. In search of a better life and development opportunities, labor mobility will increase. Wandering and moving will become the new norm. New hyperclusters will also appear – centers of concentration of talented people, similar to Silicon Valley; elite settlements and reservations will be formed.
Recruitment and education
Recruitment will become more fiexible. There will be expert online platforms with hundreds of experts, among whom it will be possible to find any specialist – up to a retired and living in Australia, a leading engineer of a coke chemical plant. Such platforms are actively developing right now, the largest – American GLG with a turnover of about $ 350 million per year – unites 500,000 experts. The use of artificial intelligence to build predictive models for evaluating candidates is not far off.
According to MGI estimates, by 2030, about 200–350 million workers worldwide (8–14% of the employed) will be forced to change their specialty due to automation, digitalization, the growth of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Continuously changing technologies will increase the demand for continuous retraining and professional development of employees.
Some analysts believe that the training system is also being transformed. A person will be responsible for the orientation, design of the training, and the training itself will be carried out by machines – online. The times when the knowledge gained at the institute was enough for a person to retire are in the past. Education will be continuous, the possibility of education will become part of the reward system, an important non-monetary bonus. And money will be less important than it is now – services and high-quality food will play an increasingly important role.
One should not expect that everyone will be able to successfully change their routine specialty to a more creative one. Alas, a person simply may not have enough abilities. Implantation of chips with knowledge bases, as in modern science ‑ction novels, is quite possible in the future 20–30 years. According to international surveys, more than 70% of workers will not refuse to take medications to stimulate mental and physical activity if it increases their employment prospects. Society will easily be able to feed the extra people, but it will not be able to occupy them – and this is a huge problem.
The work will not be the same
According to a survey conducted by Bain, 58% of respondents said that the pandemic forced them to reconsider the balance between work and private life. More than 20 thousand employees from 10 countries, which account for 65% of global GDP, took part in the survey. These are the USA, China, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Brazil. The company's analysts have identified five main trends that will affect the labor market in the future.
The first of them is a change in motivation for work. This trend is associated with an increase in living standards. Pay for labor remains an important component, but now it is becoming only one of several priorities. In addition to the income level, the following are significant: interesting work, job security, flexible working conditions. In general, the ratio of work and leisure is changing: for young people, the importance of recreation is becoming higher, and this is happening not only in Western countries, but also in China and India. At the same time, the number of those who would stop working if they had enough money to live is decreasing. In the United States, the share of such decreased from 34% in 1995 to 22% in 2021. Against the general background, Russia is once again approaching the society of universal employment in which it has already lived.
The studies also note changes in how much time is spent on work in different social strata. People with high incomes work most of all, for whom their employment is one of the signs of a high status. Least of all are the poorest people, who often do not have the opportunity to provide stable employment. So, in 2019, the average length of the working week for employees from the top 10% by income in the United States was 42 hours, and from the bottom 10% – 34.4 hours. For comparison, 40 years ago, this proportion was reversed.
The second trend is that the ideas about "good work" are not just changing, but also diverging more and more. Bain analysts have identified six types of workers with different ideas about "good work" – from performers for whom earnings are important and whose self-esteem has little to do with work, to missionaries who think primarily about their own purpose and global challenges. The division into types was carried out according to ten parameters, among which were the importance of work and status for a person, the willingness to take risks, the desire to work individually or in a team.
According to the authors, it is important to take into account the differences in ideas about the work. For example, 25% of top managers are "pioneers", that is, they are ready to make significant sacrifices in order to fulfill their mission. At the same time, there are only 9% of those working in general, which fills the work of managers and most of their employees with different meanings.
The third trend is automation "rehumanizes" labor. That is, with the automation of many routine processes, the importance of human participation is actualized in other areas. The importance in interpersonal communication, the ability to solve problems and negotiate, the manifestation of creativity, etc. will increase. The development of technologies will require more and more IT specialists of various kinds, and, for example, the aging of the population will lead to an increase in demand for doctors and social workers. All this will change the sphere of employment, which means that serious retraining will be needed.
The fourth trend is a change in the "boundaries of work" and an increase in flexibility. Technology and the pandemic have greatly changed the way we think about work. For example, last spring, the time that Americans worked from home increased dramatically – from 5% to 60%. And although some of the employees later returned to the offi ce, working from home has become a more common option. In the United States, 36% of offi ce employees say they would like to continue working from home all the time, while 22% say they want to return to work exclusively from the offi ce.
Not all forms of flexible work suit employees. 69% of people with permanent employment are satisfied with the working conditions and only 55% with various forms of temporary employment (freelance, work under a temporary contract, etc.). In addition, with the wide spread of remote work, it is not possible for everyone: in developed countries, the specialties that allow working from home account for 30–40% of all workers, in developing countries – only 10–20%.
The fifth trend is that younger generations are increasingly concerned about the situation on the labor market. 61% of respondents under the age of 35 from Western countries name ‑financial problems, concerns about job security, and the inability to achieve career goals among the serious di fficulties for the next decade. Among respondents over 35 years old, only 40% say this. Among other things, young people estimate quite low the chances that they will earn more than their parents. In the US, less than half of millennial workers expect this – the lowest level since World War II.
For employers – at least from leading companies – this will mean the following. Firstly, those who are looking for talents for their company will have to start creating these talents. This means that you will have to invest in employee training and promote their growth within the company. Secondly, companies will have to actually support the career growth and development of the personal potential of their employees. This means reorganizing the corporate environment in such a way that employees are aware of their success, and their work corresponds to individual ideas about a meaningful life. Third, managers will have to pay more attention to building a sense of community and providing employees with more opportunities.
Thus, the prevailing ideas about the relationship between employees and companies remain in the old world. The current environment requires a deep rethinking of both the structure and goals of the work.
According to a survey conducted by Bain, 58% of respondents said that the pandemic forced them to reconsider the balance between work and private life. More than 20 thousand employees from 10 countries, which account for 65% of global GDP, took part in the survey. These are the USA, China, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Brazil. The company's analysts have identified five main trends that will affect the labor market in the future.
The first of them is a change in motivation for work. This trend is associated with an increase in living standards. Pay for labor remains an important component, but now it is becoming only one of several priorities. In addition to the income level, the following are significant: interesting work, job security, flexible working conditions. In general, the ratio of work and leisure is changing: for young people, the importance of recreation is becoming higher, and this is happening not only in Western countries, but also in China and India. At the same time, the number of those who would stop working if they had enough money to live is decreasing. In the United States, the share of such decreased from 34% in 1995 to 22% in 2021. Against the general background, Russia is once again approaching the society of universal employment in which it has already lived.
The studies also note changes in how much time is spent on work in different social strata. People with high incomes work most of all, for whom their employment is one of the signs of a high status. Least of all are the poorest people, who often do not have the opportunity to provide stable employment. So, in 2019, the average length of the working week for employees from the top 10% by income in the United States was 42 hours, and from the bottom 10% – 34.4 hours. For comparison, 40 years ago, this proportion was reversed.
The second trend is that the ideas about "good work" are not just changing, but also diverging more and more. Bain analysts have identified six types of workers with different ideas about "good work" – from performers for whom earnings are important and whose self-esteem has little to do with work, to missionaries who think primarily about their own purpose and global challenges. The division into types was carried out according to ten parameters, among which were the importance of work and status for a person, the willingness to take risks, the desire to work individually or in a team.
According to the authors, it is important to take into account the differences in ideas about the work. For example, 25% of top managers are "pioneers", that is, they are ready to make significant sacrifices in order to fulfill their mission. At the same time, there are only 9% of those working in general, which fills the work of managers and most of their employees with different meanings.
The third trend is automation "rehumanizes" labor. That is, with the automation of many routine processes, the importance of human participation is actualized in other areas. The importance in interpersonal communication, the ability to solve problems and negotiate, the manifestation of creativity, etc. will increase. The development of technologies will require more and more IT specialists of various kinds, and, for example, the aging of the population will lead to an increase in demand for doctors and social workers. All this will change the sphere of employment, which means that serious retraining will be needed.
The fourth trend is a change in the "boundaries of work" and an increase in flexibility. Technology and the pandemic have greatly changed the way we think about work. For example, last spring, the time that Americans worked from home increased dramatically – from 5% to 60%. And although some of the employees later returned to the offi ce, working from home has become a more common option. In the United States, 36% of offi ce employees say they would like to continue working from home all the time, while 22% say they want to return to work exclusively from the offi ce.
Not all forms of flexible work suit employees. 69% of people with permanent employment are satisfied with the working conditions and only 55% with various forms of temporary employment (freelance, work under a temporary contract, etc.). In addition, with the wide spread of remote work, it is not possible for everyone: in developed countries, the specialties that allow working from home account for 30–40% of all workers, in developing countries – only 10–20%.
The fifth trend is that younger generations are increasingly concerned about the situation on the labor market. 61% of respondents under the age of 35 from Western countries name ‑financial problems, concerns about job security, and the inability to achieve career goals among the serious di fficulties for the next decade. Among respondents over 35 years old, only 40% say this. Among other things, young people estimate quite low the chances that they will earn more than their parents. In the US, less than half of millennial workers expect this – the lowest level since World War II.
For employers – at least from leading companies – this will mean the following. Firstly, those who are looking for talents for their company will have to start creating these talents. This means that you will have to invest in employee training and promote their growth within the company. Secondly, companies will have to actually support the career growth and development of the personal potential of their employees. This means reorganizing the corporate environment in such a way that employees are aware of their success, and their work corresponds to individual ideas about a meaningful life. Third, managers will have to pay more attention to building a sense of community and providing employees with more opportunities.
Thus, the prevailing ideas about the relationship between employees and companies remain in the old world. The current environment requires a deep rethinking of both the structure and goals of the work.
