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posted by on May 12, 2009

Just reading a new report from Littler on the contingent workforce.

I've pasted one of the interesting sections below.

"Littler predicts that, assuming the recession is ending or has ended, 50% of the workforce added in 2010 will be made up of one form or another of contingent workers. As a result, approximately 25% to as high as 35% of the workforce will be made up of temporary workers, contractors, or other project-based labor. The numbers of professionals working in temporary or alternative work arrangements will continue to rise. Flexible work schedules and telecommuting will increase as companies turn towards practical solutions to efficiently complete tasks while retaining talented individuals.

The workplace of tomorrow will feature small, core management teams for key corporate functions such as management and strategic direction. The rest of the workplace will be radically different than what we have seen and experienced since the 1960s and the rise of big corporations that do most everything in-house. The emphasis and management direction will be to outsource all that can be accessed reliably and cost effectively on the outside. Like Nike athletic shoes (which are only designed and marketed in-house), business models will be based on and supported by a huge network of national and international suppliers for everything from human capital to logistics to manufacturing. Indeed, with workers moving in and out of a company's doors on a just-in-time, project-by-project basis, it will be difficult to determine how many people are working for or supporting a company at any given time. Yet, this model will give corporations the flexibility to be nimble and selective when staffing and supporting business functions and be strategic and precise in long-term project planning. The ability to staff up or down quickly will be of paramount importance in this new model, which in turn, creates new hurdles and headaches in dealing with rather archaic employment and labor laws designed for decades ago. Companies need to plan for the new future — now."

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  • 1 point 6 months ago

    I'm interested to see what that means not just for work but for people's lives. If a huge number of people have no ties to an employer, and therefore perhaps no ties to a city, how would they buy a home, knowing they don't know where they'll need to live a year later? How would their children develop a sense of continuity and friends in school if they're always moving? What would happen to health insurance if 35% of people are contingent and aren't receiving group insurance via their employers?

  • 1 point 6 months ago

    I like this new "future" of employment.  As a lover of analogies, I'd like to compare this "new" way of hiring to breathing.  Breathing is ONE system of inhalations and exhalations.  Air is coming in and air is going out.  As long as that is happening then the body (i.e. Corporations) can live and operate optimally.  If you inhale without exhaling or vice versa you pass out.  In kind, staffing up and staffing down will be a natural process just like breathing once we get used to it. We just need to break the habit of over-production and over-consumption that has our economic structure imbalanced right now.  Once things settle, we'll see what companies like Toyota discovered long ago--mimic nature and make small improvements along the way.

  • 1 point 6 months ago

    Todd,

    Well described. Additionally, this New World of Work will also do away with the concept of hourly wages - compensation will be based on the individual's actual value add to the end user customer - as it should be.

    Thanks for your insights - certainly refreshing to read something other than yet another industry pundant discovering SN2.0.