BW also quotes Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, as saying the brutal recession has prompted more companies to create just-in-time labor forces that can be turned on and off like a spigot. "'Employers are trying to get rid of all fixed costs,' Cappelli says. 'First they did it with employment benefits. Now they're doing it with the jobs themselves. Everything is variable.' That means companies hold all the power, and 'all the risks are pushed on to employees.'"
It's a fairly old forecast in labor circles that work is moving from full-time jobs towards a project-based, just-in-time agglomeration of skills. This can even sound quite attractive: think of the movie industry. When a movie goes ahead, a whole raft of employees, from actors to sound engineers to caterers to editors are brought in as needed and paid well. They meanwhile have the flexibility to work on other projects too.
But, predictably, people who are not celebrities, or super-skilled, or young-and-free hate this form of working because of its insecurity. Those who want to know where their next paycheck is coming from, are the overwhelming majority, and they will push back against this future heavily. They are therefore the immense brakes on this brave new world of work forecast.
In recessionary times employees have little power. But when things turn up, the power balance in the labor market will shift and employers will have to start offering real jobs and benefit to workers they don't want to lose to competitors who are offering them.
