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Digital Business insights: Jobs, jobs, jobs
JOBS are important not just for income, but for identity, status, security, social cohesion, regional and national resilience.
So where are 21st century jobs going to come from?
Technology has allowed us to automate many processes that were once performed by humans. It has allowed us to build robots and machines that replace people.
It has allowed us to streamline administrative and management tasks and effectively “hollow out” most businesses and not-for-profit organisations, by increasing the capacity of individuals to perform more work, become more productive and “do more with less”.
Technology has pushed people up the “thinking chain”. Dumb tasks can be automated. Imagination, ideas and vision can’t be.
We need the skills, education, training and application of brain power to add value to all of our working activities and industries for Australia to be successful.
Blue collar or white collar? It doesn’t matter.
Both require a higher level of skills, training, insights and education in the 21st century, because we aren’t just competing with other businesses and countries, we (individuals) are now competing with machines and automation for jobs.
So technology is a blessing and a curse.
The economic downturn and the GFC have forced government, corporates and organisations of all sizes to review their operations over the past five years. Not just within Australia, but across the whole world.
Multinational companies have looked for and found efficiencies by closing down operations altogether – Ford, Holden, Toyota are top of mind in Australia. And many other organisations, including government, corporates, health, education and academia are trimming and sometimes slashing their workforces radically.
The efficiencies gained are providing a solid foundation for growth as the economy slowly regains strength, but this doesn’t necessarily mean more jobs. Initially, it just means more return on investment.
Jobs will be added only when necessary and extra care will go into selection.
And jobs themselves have changed.
More jobs are contract jobs and part time jobs, or outsourced to maintain the core flexibility and agility to survive in a disrupted environment.
Highly paid professionals in healthcare, education, academia and government – the traditional safe spots – are now being moved onto contracts.
There is no safety at the top any more.
Flexibility is being forced upon the nation at a time when nobody really knows where we are heading.
Security of tenure is a thing of the past. Historically, having your own business or being self-employed was viewed as a risky option, and getting a career and job for life was the safe and sensible thing to do.
We have trained a workforce of followers – following orders, leaving ideas and initiative to others, waiting to be told what to do.
Studies show that net job growth comes from startups in their first five years*. We need more startups. We need more entrepreneurs. We need innovation. We need individuals wishing to take control of their destinies and start up new businesses.
Jobs will come from startups. And the more we can help startup businesses to either fail quicker or succeed faster, the better it will be for the overall job market. And for Australia.
Because startups will broaden the job base across all industry sectors, making us less reliant on one or two industry sectors.
Jobs will come from value adding to Australia’s productive industries – manufacturing, agriculture, tourism, cleantech, medtech, greentech, biotech, creative industries, ICT, education and training, design led professional services, trades and infrastructure, and then exporting the resulting products and services.
Startups in the 90s created an average of 7.5 jobs each. Today, that average has dropped to 4.9 jobs per startup because of the efficiencies of technology and outsourcing.
But startups are still a powerful driver of employment growth.
Our education system and employment system trains people to be good followers. We need more innovators who don’t wait for permission – but get stuff done.
The technology that destroys jobs can be used intelligently to support startups through the first five years, creating new jobs.
Incubation doesn’t just have to happen in iLabs and other real world business incubators, it can happen virtually for all businesses and industries across the whole country.
Technology can be used to deliver the information, business insights, knowledge, support, networks, customers and mentorship that will help startups to succeed.
It cuts both ways. We lose jobs because of technology. But we must then create and support jobs because of technology.
* Kauffman Foundation 2010
- John Sheridan, March 2013.
John Sheridan is CEO of Digital Business insights, an organisation based in Brisbane, Australia, which focuses on helping organisations and communities adapt to, and flourish in, the new digital world. He is the author of Connecting the Dots and getting more out of the digital revolution. Digital Business insights has been researching and analysing the digital revolution for more than 12 years and has surveyed more than 50,000 businesses, conducting in-depth case study analysis on more than 350 organisations and digital entrepreneurs.
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