Career Trends

Really interesting Ted Talk on how changing demography trends will effect Germany (and other developed nations) in the upcoming years.

Salman Sakir's article is relevant to the issues raised in Friedman's book The World is Flat in which Friedman in a sense laments over the impact of globalization upon the developed countries, the USA for him, because the developing countries like Brazil and Asian countries like China and India have a massive work labour influence upon the West. Sakir focuses on both the positive and negative aspects of globalization, one of the five forces in Gratton's The Shift and a form of global economy as discussed by Stanford in his Economics for Everyone. Because of low wage and easy availability of experts/labour in the developing countries, foreign investments have been attracted by those Asian and developing countries where the jobs have been created for the locals. On the other hand, the citizens of the developed counters of the West and the North America have consumed the products from the developing countries in a reasonably lower price. Poverty ratio has been decreased in the developing countries which have also been integrated by the phenomenon of globalization. These are positive impacts. But in the developed countries, manufacturing industries have been moved out. so unemployment rate is ever increasing, Sakir highlights these aspects of globalization in this article.

This brief piece offers an informative portrait of what is going on in the Canadian job market. In entirety, job market in the current month, compared to November 2014, is encouraging. "A healthy rotation toward more full-time jobs will be encouraging to the Bank of Canada which has flagged underemployment as a signpost of slack in labour markets."

This article is a set of tips for handing a resume in online, which is how many employers request their information with the increased reliance on technology!

The emergence of e-commerce has tremendously changed the ways of doing business-t-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) commerce including timing, transportation patterns, consumer behavior and marketing. The article commodiously focuses on the ideas and global trends of chain business: B2B e-commerce leads the way, Double-digit growth for B2C, Economic behavioral changes and E-commerce influences demand patterns.

I found this article as a useful resource to understand the importance of "collaboration" in the new market or business trend known as the global supply chain, which Freindman braodly explains in his book The World is Flat. The industries in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) sector have "identified collaboration with partners as their highest strategic priority." This article outlines six actions that manufacturers and retailer partners can take to ensure a successful supply chain.

This article works as one of the best examples to understand the new trends, the global chaining which has extensively been elaborated by Friendman in his book The World is Flat. When the Starbucks face a cost problem in its operational system, the company applied certain improvement steps and made drastic changes: a plan for organization, simplifying the complex, "one world, one logistics system," and earning the company's confidence.

The issues discussed by Sam Gindin in this article are related to Stanford's elaboration of capitalism in terms of its historical origin and its global impacts on human economic activities (both positive and negative). Gindin's justification that neoliberalism emerged as another form of economy in order to boost up capitalism sounds similar to what Stanford explains about it. Standford makes clear that new capitalist control or influence the majority of the world population: "the ability of elected governments to manage a capitalist economy is fundamentally limited by the unelected power of businesses and investors" (Economics for Everyone, 31). Regarding the capitalists' power as such, Gindin makes a sever comment that it is not late yet for political power to control the limited number of capitalists' monopoly.

As we explored, many of the "traditional" workplace settings are being forgotten, and new ways of working are being introduced, as more people want more of a work-life balance, and as companies downsize their workforce. This article explores the benefits of flexible workplaces and the benefits they have for employees. However, it does not explore the negative impacts this kind of work can have on employees

I thought this was a particularly good source to end the term with as it summarizes many of the issues we have been exploring throughout the course

I found this article interesting because it outlines how even our most basic needs, growing food, can be outsourced to other countries. It also explores how outsourcing can be a type of neocolonialism, with rich countries exploiting poorer ones for their resources.

This article explores how some employers are experimenting with new ways to hire, train and invest in young people, even if they have no experience, for highly-skilled, specialized positions. I think this is an interesting new trend, considering that many youth are facing unemployment or are underemployed because of employers looking for experience.

The arguments, perspectives and content in this article are very much supportive to understand what Friedman elaborates in his book The World is Flat. Because of new technoogies, the developing countries and Asian countries like China and India are emerging as dominant world economies. "By relocating some parts of international supply chains, globalization has been affecting the price of goods, job patterns, and wages almost everywhere."

This article analyses both the positive and negative impacts of technology upon the jobs skills and indutrial working-pattern which The Shift focuses on. The digital technology has added a great deal of quality to productivity and industrial services, official work trends and has also created new jobs such as web designing, internet operator and so on. But it cannot be without negative consequences. The "new technologies have also shrunk or even eliminated other industries and the jobs associated with them 9e.g., electronic typewriter)." This is similar to what Gratton's reference to robot soemwhere in the book.

In the Shift, Gratton mentions globalization and the increased shift of jobs overseas. This link (it's actually an audio podcast) speaks to what Gratton states is the increase of jobs to Asia and India and information on this practice. It is interesting that they note that outsourcing does not have to simply be done overseas - a firm can outsource anything if it gives it to another firm - and it also speaks to how offshoring jobs isn't always the best option and can even end up costing the business more money. It also provides an outline of the benefits of sending jobs overseas, but also the benefits of keeping certain parts of the business in country and why large businesses may actually refute what Gratton is proposing .

I've included this discussion paper with an international flavour that shows the impact of climate change on various sectors across the globe. As stated in unit one, climate change will affect every part of our lives and have an impact on employment in many sectors. The aim of the paper is actually to create employment standards; the most important part is the first ten pages when it describes the potential impact on work. It will help provide a better understanding of the far reaching impact of climate change in the upcoming years and how we can best adapt ourselves.

In "The Shift", Gratton mentions 'the traditional deal at work: to be paid, to consume stuff and bring happiness'. In the future, we need to make choices to live a more balanced life. Our experiences will bring us more satisfaction and happiness than buying things with money. This guide may help us see the benefits of owning and wanting less.

In writing my paper on Shift I reflected a lot how technology globalization and fragmentation are impact the stress felt at work. This in an interesting article burnout norms of Western work culture.

This is a really interesting talk on why so many people struggle to be productive at work and how it impacts our lives; this connects well with Gratton's comments on fragmentation in the workplace.