This post focuses on jobs and specifically on jobs in the traditional sense of full-time positions working for an employer. It is important to note that this is not a case for a future without work, but a future without jobs.
Jobs will play a minor role in the future of work.While to contemporary workers this may sound like a bold prediction, in fact, jobs have played a minor role throughout most of recorded history. Hunters and gathers, shepherds and farmers, merchants and blacksmiths, innkeepers andbakers didn’t have “jobs” as we think of them today. They performed tasks thatprovided food and shelter.
The modern concept of “jobs” grew out of the industrialrevolution. The history of jobs is complex and sometimes dark includingindentured servants as well as the often-idealized role of soldiers in militaryhistory. The modern concept of “jobs” is grounded in the industrial revolutionand accompanying rise of large organizations. The organizations were necessarybecause the tasks—producing steel, manufacturing cars, and buildingrailroads—were far too large for one or a few individuals. And the time horizonof the tasks was decades if not centuries.
Today’s love/hate relationship with jobs. In recent history, a young person getting their “first job” was a celebrated rite of passage. It signaled independence, security, and the first step on the career path. But the independence from family and others who had supported us shifted to dependence on the employer who provided the job . . . and all the “benefits”that became a right. While some loved their jobs, it was unsurprising that this new dependent relationship often resulted in tension that played out in job dissatisfaction, poor performance, and job turnover. Long gone are the days of a thirty-year career with one employer.
Work without jobs. In fact, we appear to be cycling back to being hunters and gathers. The focus is on tasks and on jobs to be donerather than jobs as positions. We aspire to be entrepreneurs, founders, and freelancers. While dependence and dissatisfaction may have marked the end ofjobs as we know them, this shift is about much more. As we have moved throughthe industrial revolution and information age and now are focused on expertiseand intelligence—human and artificial—the world of work is changingdramatically. No longer are large numbers of people required to accomplish big tasks. There are predictions of billion-dollar companies with ten employees ormaybe no employees. The decentralization of everything is real. And as the speed at which knowledge develops continues to accelerate, hiring a full-timeemployee for their expertise makes no sense when in six months the expertise needed likely will have changed.
The future of work. Perhaps we can gain insight into the future of work by looking at the recent transformation of specific industries that offer an alternative model. The transformation involves a shift from jobs provided by an employer to tasks available on a platform. In this new model, instead of gathering berries and hunting buffalo, we are driving strangers to concerts and offering guests a place to sleep. Instead of being dependent on an employer to find the berries and buffalo and maybe laying us off if enough are not found, we are independent freelancers and entrepreneurs. Having the platform tofind the strangers and guests, however, gives us a tremendous advantage over the early hunters and gathers.
The future is both exciting and frightening. While the pace of change is accelerating, there obviously are still taxi and rental car companies and still hotels. And there will still be traditional jobs for some time. It is undeniable, however, that we are experiencing a major transformation in work and the nature of jobs. The shift from employer dependence to platform enabled is both exciting and frightening. There are many unresolved issues with the examples described above that must be addressed. We will explore those later in this series. While that pesky love/hate relationship with dependence will not go away and there is much to be addressed, the future of work offers many exciting opportunities for those prepared to embrace the transformation.