A recent study report says that majority of the Americans view technology as a potential factor of devastating their job opportunities while there are still a considerable number of people across the developed countries who consider immigration as well as off-shoring the gravest danger faced by their jobs.
Nevertheless, job security is one of the most pestering thoughts to be had by the people of the present world. Something so yearned by everyone and yet so hard to get. The fact is that the jobs are constantly under threat from a range of sources. As time advances, and technology turns increasingly fine-tuned as well as widespread, the hidden arm of the market is all set to have more of those drastic deck reshuffles in the post-globalization economy leaving many a youngster wondering if he will still have a job the year ahead.
Job Insecurity; The Indian Model
Recently the Indian government has brought forth a controversial decision to extend to all sectors, the facility of hiring employees based on fixed-term employment. Although the government has decided on this development seeing it as a potential factor that would promote the ease of doing business, the opposing trade unions view it as paving way for turning permanent employees to contract workers on a fixed term. Besides, for any common man, this development obviously translates into facilitating the employers with hire and fire rights.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence is definitely something that majority of the Americans view as the demon that would devour job opportunities. This happens even while a part of the market still tends to firmly believe that AI is capable of creating jobs in significant volumes to counter the threat. In the midst of this turmoil is the middle class that considers losing the job as well as livelihood really scary as against those high-earning CEOs under constant pressure and scrutiny that would have some savings to depend on in case of a loss of job.
Immigration
meanwhile can be seen as a positive thing as well. No American or Middle East country can disown the fact that their economic prosperity and growth still depended on it considerably, as more people in the sphere meant more competition, and of course opportunity in the end of all. It is true that for a number of people particularly at the economic ladder’s bottom, it may translate into the threat of being replaced. However, this concerns mostly unskilled labor positions.
Let’s discuss certain other factors that may destroy job opportunities
Discrimination
One may not get fired as a turnout of this hazard, but in the first place may not even get a job. A major problem faced by many economies in the world, governments are presently seen taking great pain to prohibit such tendencies of recruiters such as probing about the criminal history of the job applicants.
Shareholders
It is not secret that many that work for publicly traded companies are at the mercy of those companies’ owners – the shareholders. Considerable returns are what the investors, as well as owners of a company, set their eyes on. Their expectations are definitely big quarterly growth. The high expectations of those men more often than not culminate into the tendency of slashing down employees when costs need to be slashed.
Background and Credit Checks
People’s jobs are very much at risk due to needless credit and background checks. We know that recently the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of the United States had reprimanded some providers of background checks for slashing corners and delivering bad data that had led to a good number of applicants missing out on job opportunities. Credit checks as well are a futile endeavor, pressurizing the hiring systems discriminating many otherwise qualified job seekers.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing of jobs is the child of globalization, and it is likely to persist as long as developing countries and overseas economies are on the growth graph as regards to stature and ability. As people across the globe are increasingly turning out to be better educated and skilled besides willing to work for lesser pays manufacturing jobs as well as technology sector jobs tend to get go their way as outsourced giving bad news for populaces such as Americans, Canadians and Australians.
Economic Downturns
These are part of the economies’ business cycle, something that can seldom be avoided. They are going to happen in the future as well with no much anyone having to do about it. When recessions take place, they generally lead to forcing companies to do some cost-slashing measures, including layoffs.
Can We Possibly Overcome these Job Threats?
Firstly, people of the different world economies need to get used to the fact that nobody’s job is really secured. Even among high earning CEOs job security is so much a distance thing. Thinking too much about job security could be giving people an unwanted anxiety attack. Some of those factors are unfortunately inevitable while others could be well solved out tomorrow providing we worked toward it. The aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008 is an eye-opener here. Despite the fact that many had lost their jobs and tranquility then somehow or other the world has been able to regain its footing by now.
First of all, maintaining a decent profile in life is all that is required to be done for any existing discrimination policies adopted by the recruiters. To ward off the next hazard; that is the shareholders’ threat, the worker is advised to make himself/herself indispensable. That says about the point where the manager lauds the worker asking him to keep on doing confidently what he has been. Every factor that tends to threaten job opportunities has something in it as positive, but for the threat posed by AI. However, this as well is very much in the hands of a man who could in course of time find out a viable solution to tackle the problems created by it.