Shaping Labour Market Trends

Technology and the Information Era

There is an explosion of information that is becoming more and more available to the public due to technological advances, and it is changing the power base, the way people tackle their problems and the marketplace. Ten years ago, futurists such as Beck (1992) and Toffler (1990) spoke of the evolution of the new information era from the industrial era. Toffler described the pyramidal power structure based on the few at the top with access to information and how changes in the behaviour and demands of the general population came about as information became more accessible to them due to technological advances.

At that time, the example was patients asking for explanations, questioning the decisions of their doctors and demanding more input into their treatments. Toffler said, "... the knowledge monopoly of the medical profession has been thoroughly smashed," and, "similarly, inside major corporations, employees are winning access to knowledge once monopolized by managers" (p. 8).

Skip ahead a decade and members of the general public are in a position to research their own specific disease and its treatment in more depth than their general practitioner, who deals with hundreds of patients. Individuals with a computer can become their own stockbroker, getting hourly updates on the stock market and buying and selling on-line. The public receives a deluge of information from media that affects spending habits, charity choices, political decisions and social opinions.

The Internet has infiltrated education, business and personal life around the globe - a revolution itself in information dissemination. Television news and newsmagazine shows, newspapers and magazines all refer viewers/readers to their Web sites for more in-depth information, consumer feedback and surveys. Movie marketers produce grand promotions on the Internet with digital video clips, and the latest movies can be sent to theatres over the Internet instead of in a can. Banking, purchasing, advertising, designing, job postings, travel arrangements, training and academic courses, conferences and registrations are all at the consumer's fingertips.

The Rise of Internet Use in Canada The number of Canadians accessing the Internet rose to 40.4% of the population in 1999 from 23% in 1996. Of Canadian Internet users, 17% made purchases via the Internet in 1998 compared to 11% in 1996. Sixty-one percent of Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were connected to the Internet in 1999, up from 15.2% in 1996. Sources: AC Nielson, the Canadian Internet Survey 1996,1997,1998; The Canadian Consumer Internet Market April 1999; and the CFIB Internet Surveys 1996-1999. This information is available on the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) Web site. Statistics have come from Internet surveys. Looking Ahead In a high-tech report in the Ottawa Citizen, Leslie Nicholson (1999) writes about the switch from the silicon computer to the molecular computer as the growth in transistor computer power reaches its ultimate capacity. She describes work being done by researchers from the University of California and from Hewlett-Packard to make computers operate on molecular circuits with chemically synthesized switches. These would be super-fast, super-efficient microscopic computers, small enough to use inside the human body.

Think of how this would change the labour market: new government policies (especially in ethics), new consumer demands, loss of work in silicone production and demand for differently skilled workers to build and use the new technology.

"Technology is transforming our existence in profound ways. Almost all technology today is focussed on compressing to zero the time it takes to acquire and use information, to learn, to make decisions, to initiate action, to deploy resources, to innovate. When action and response are simultaneous, we are in real time" (McKenna, 1997). McKenna is explicit about the effect of real-time technologies - they teach the consumer to expect and demand immediate satisfaction.

An example of the dramatic ways the nature of customer service has changed to meet consumer demands is demonstrated by the so-called "mass customization" of products and services. For example, in an article in the Ottawa Citizen (October 23, 1999), David Stonehouse writes that the Levi Strauss Co. can provide customers with custom-fit jeans using high-tech booths where a client can be measured in three dimensions by light beams. And on another product front, Dell Computer Corporation allows customers to place orders for computers with customized features over the Internet.

Expanding high technology has had a significant impact on virtually all industries and how they serve customers. For manufacturing companies, speedy access to massive amounts of information has bestowed power to increase quality and quantity of products, to receive orders from around the world and to reply the same day, to use billing systems that co-ordinate orders and invoices for multi-branched worldwide companies. Research and development companies can receive data from the source before they are even published, making vital information available instantaneously.

As technology advances and new, faster, better goods and services are available and in demand, there is a shift toward highly skilled, information workers (see Figure 2). However, the transformation of the labour force does not rest only on the increased accumulation of information; knowledge resulting from accumulated information needs to be consolidated. Information workers have evolved into data workers who manipulate data and into knowledge workers who plan and create using information. Knowledge workers are a sought-after commodity by employers for their value in the race to stay competitive.

Implications for Career Decision Making

Technology has opened up new considerations for occupations, and has driven people to new heights of information gathering in the exploration phase of their career development. These heights have helped some and immobilized others. A major task of practitioners is to help mobilize those frozen by the overload of information. Refer to Chapter 5 for labour market information resources and how to use them.

The changing face of the labour market has driven more people to look at their skills and qualities - and where those skills can take them. People who never took stock before now have to strategize for inevitable changes. More attention has been focussed on the increased need to analyze transferability of skills and mobility in work roles. Practitioners are helping clients "re-brand" themselves by identifying their unique characteristics and skills, and showing them how to use their knowledge of the new economic structures to market the value they can bring to a company.

The electronic job bank is a graphic example of a technological advance that influences how information is disseminated, gathered and used in career/employment decisions. Available through Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) and through a plethora of privately produced Web sites, these banks can be searched for local, national or international job openings. Most are updated hourly or daily. This has greatly reduced practitioner screening of clients for job referrals both in government employment offices and in private placement firms.

This new technology has implications for all those involved: the client, the career practitioner, the employment counsellor, the employer posting openings and the Web site producer. For example:

• Clients have more up-to-date information, as well as more responsibility, for determining the most appropriate jobs for them, when submitting applications.
• As more clients serve themselves electronically, the type of help they need changes and may require new skills on the part of some practitioners. Also, many other clients who come in for direct help may have multi-factorial problems that demand yet another set of skills from practitioners.
• To be competitive, career practitioners need to be able to find and assess the tools that will allow them to guide clients to effective use of new information as it becomes available (instead of the counsellors themselves being the main source of information).
• Employers are able to target their search for workers to specific categories on specific Web sites. They also open themselves up to floods of résumés that need to be screened.
• To meet the expectations of customers (job seekers and employers), Web site producers offer up-to-date, local, regional, national and international postings with high-performing search engines, validity checks for résumés, confidentiality and matching services for both parties. They may also have to find a specialty niche to survive the competition.

The innovative technological advances and the need for ultimate responsiveness to consumers have a tangible impact on how work is done and on the skills and knowledge needed for success in the labour market by all parties. In helping clients navigate the labour market, will the career practitioner be an information broker - guiding clients to appropriate sources for customized information - or a knowledge worker - creatively transforming selective information into processes that will advance decision making and increase successful outcomes for their clients? Or a bit of both?