Job Market Trends

If you are thinking about your own career options, it is important to keep in mind general trends in the world of work. The job market is always shifting and has been changing at an accelerated rate over the last 25 years.

The Economy

The state of the economy affects our career decisions. In a time of rapid economic growth, there are more opportunities available, whilst in a recession, jobs are likely to be in short supply. The additional openings caused by an economic boom are not caused just by the creation of new jobs, but also by people moving more freely between jobs. It is much easier to re-enter the job market or make radical career moves when the economy is booming.

Employment Structure

Over the past 20-25 years, there has been a fundamental shift in employment structure, which affects career planning to a much greater degree than the economy. Although these changes will vary in detail by country, region and sector, the same broad shifts are evident across the Western world:

• A decline in less skilled jobs and a growth in high-skill, professional and 'knowledge' jobs.
• A growth in temporary and part-time employment.
• An increase in the importance of employment in smaller organisations and of self-employment.
• An increase in jobs in the service sectors, e.g. retailing, financial services and health services.
• The 'contracting out' of some work from larger organisations (e.g. in security, catering, cleaning) to smaller organisations or the self-employed.
• A reduction of employment in agriculture, fishing, mining, etc.
• Relatively fewer jobs in manufacturing industry.

These shifts have caused considerable levels of general unemployment, along with shortages of people with particular skills.

What Does This All Mean?

It's important to realise that a 'job for life' is not a realistic prospect for many of us anymore, so we should expect several major changes in occupation during our career, and many more changes in our job or employer. We may have a 'portfolio career' involving several types of paid or unpaid work activities at the same time.

To manage our own careers, we need to be:

• Aware of and understand trends in the job market.
• Willing to learn new skills, especially higher-level, interpersonal and technological skills.
• Ready and capable of managing our own careers.
• Able to develop and use personal networks to find new work.
• Adaptable and flexible.

Change is constant. We need to understand that it is up to us to manage our skill development and career moves - if we do not ensure our own employability by attaining the right skills and move into areas that offer us growth and opportunity, then no one else will do it for us. This means we must look around for suitable work avenues to pursue and convince our employers that we are ready to tackle new challenges.

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