Five-Year Global Workforce Forecast (Coursework Sample)

Five-Year Global Workforce Forecast
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Five-Year Global Workforce Forecast
Introduction
The performances of the global and the U.S. economies have improved recently in terms of job creation. Unemployment rates stand at an all time low compared to what a number of macroeconomists anticipated could be attained without significant increases in inflation rates. The United States, for example, has registered a strong job growth. Employers have spread out their recruitment to reach low-skilled laborers, the youth, as well as other groups traditionally not favored by the labor market (World Bank, 2013, p. 139). Aside from job creation, wages have also been rising steadily. This trend is not unique only to the United States but has also been witnessed globally. In the context of the good tidings, it becomes imperative to assess the trends that affect today’s job market and forecast for the future. One justification is to establish policies that can assist in sustaining economic expansion without causing new inflation. The second justification is to better the understanding of the manner in which the job market, public policies, and emerging social, economic, as well as demographic trends interact. Three broad trends affecting the U.S. and the global economy, which include shifting demographic patterns, economic globalization, and technological advancement, are likely to affect the future workforce.
Demographic Shifts and the Future Workplace
The world is undergoing a massive demographic transition that will restructure markets and economies in the coming five decades. According to the United Nations, the world’s populations will peak and then stabilize by 2050 (Taggart, 2011, p. 6). Significant demographic trends will emerge in the workforce in the next five years. The emerging trends are due to the vicissitudes of birth rates. Both the labor force and the general population will continue to expand, as immigration continues to comprise a substantial part of growth in the population. These trends have considerable implications for the future workforce and workplace in the sense that they will have a far-reaching effect on the size, constitution, worker compensation, as well as the skills of the workforce (De & Carlsen, 2008, p. 212). Understanding the trends will assist employers, workers, policymakers, and educators make knowledgeable decisions that are in tandem with changing realities. With respect to the composition of the workforce, the trend is moving towards a more balanced demographic distribution by gender, age, as well as ethnicity/race. For example, the population and workforce in the United States have been growing older. In other words, the workforce in the U.S. is increasingly becoming evenly distributed with respect to the different age groups (RAND Corporation, 2004, p. 1). In addition, the progressively increasing participation of females in the labor force, together with the declension in male participation, has brought the global labor force nearer to gender parity.
The influx of immigrants has for the most part responsible for the continued increase in the ethnic and racial diversity in the workforce, with Asians and Hispanics constituting the fastest growing racial groups in the U.S. workforce. According to Lerman and Schmidt (1999, p. 1), forty million people were projected to enter the workforce during the period between 2000 and 2010, and close to twenty-five million were projected to leave. They contended that even though only a minor reduction would occur in the general growth of the workforce, the composition of growth was likely to lead to increasing proportions of young (below twenty-five years) and older (forty-five years and above) workers, as well as a reduction in the number of middle-aged workers. In view of the trends in population growth and labor force participation, the global workforce is likely to increase in size, albeit at a significantly slower rate compared to the past.
Technological Advancement and the Workforce Prospects
The pace of technological advancements, through IT (information technology), nanotechnology, biotechnology, molecular biology, and other emerging fields such as artificial intelligence and cognitive science will most certainly gain speed over the next five years, with synergism across various disciplines and technologies bringing about advances in R&D (research and development) and production methods. For instance, in the field of information technology, advances in microprocessor technology are likely to support advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, and real-time speech recognition (RAND Corporation, 2004, p. 1). More intelligent robots will likely be produced than are currently available. These will support quick reconfiguring of machines to generate new production runs, with considerable implications for manufacturing inventories and logistics. Further advancements in technology are anticipated to support growth in productivity, amplify the demand for skilled labor, and alter the character of employment relations and business organization.
Globalization and its Effects on the Future Workforce
The new market that reigns under the effects of pervasive globalization implies changes to the nature and structure of work and organizations. Globalization governs the manner in which businesses think, as well as the treatment accorded to workers (Robertson & World Bank, 2009, p. 14). Without a doubt, the future impact of globalization will be more panoptic, affecting the various workforce segments and industries that are presently protected from trade-related competition. For instance, there has been consistent growth in services over the past two decades and some skilled, white collar jobs, such as business processing and information technology (IT) are increasingly being outsourced. Economic globalization, characterized by mobile populations, increased capital flow, rapid growth in trade in intermediate services and goods, as well as rapid transfer of technologies and knowledge, has resulted in cheap and fast transmission of information enabled by drastic and far-reaching changes in information technology (Capello & Dentinho, 2012, p. 157). Globalization will continue to contribute to economic benefits in the long term. Even though jobs and market share will shrink in some segments of the economy, with both short- and long-term ramifications for the affected workers, such job losses will be compensated by gains in employment in other economic sectors. The full effect of globalization is yet to reveal itself. However, as more organizations embrace the trend, certain changes will likely emerge.
The Impacts of Changing Trends on the Way Organizations Function
The three trends of demographic shifts, technological advancements, and globalization overlap, as well as their implications on the future workforce, overlap. They will affect staffing, training and development, communication, employee relations, rewarding, performance management, and technology. There are four important implications in this respect (RAND Corporation, 2004, p. 1). First, employees will in specialized, decentralized companies and the manner in which firms conduct employee relations will become more individualized and less standardized. Second, the slow growth of the workforce will persuade employers to espouse approaches to facilitate increased work force participation among traditionally marginalized groups such women, the youth, people with disabilities, and the elderly. The third implication is that organizations will place greater emphasis on training as the labor force tries to respond to changes in technology and remain competitive in the ever-changing global marketplace. Lastly, future growth in productivity is likely to support higher wages, which will influence the wage distribution. Most importantly, the link between employment and the obtaining of fringe benefits is likely to grow weaker. The impact of technology on future workforce will mostly depend upon whether organizations implement customization approaches in their response to emerging technologies. Without a doubt, competitive pressure may force more organizations and businesses to change extensively their workplace organization (Lewin, Kaufman & Gollan, 2010, p. 86). Nonetheless, a number of firms will find it hard to transform their operations due to employee resistance, pressure from labor unions, as well as resistance from lower and mod-level management.
In the rapidly changing global environment, firms are shifting from vertically integrated organizations to ones that are more specialized. Most firms are increasingly outsourcing noncore operations and are changing to more decentralized systems of internal organization (Mello, 2014, p. 266). In this regard, it can be anticipated that over the next five years, most firms will move from traditional permanent forms of employment to non-standard employment arrangements such as distance work. Such arrangements may prove to be particularly appealing to workers who are seeking to balance their work life with family and personal commitments or older and disabled workers who would vastly gain from alternative employment arrangements. In view of a difficult labor market, it can be anticipated that firms will recruit workers with comparatively low labor force participation. Changes in the nature of organizations, as well as the increasing value of ...