[Bruce_the_vii]

The World Labour Markets

The Economist Magazine did a special report on world employment, and to a labour activist like me this was of interest. Here’s three points.

The world is working. Some 3.1 billion people are employed. Official world unemployment is 7%. Labour activity in the poor countries is higher than in the developed countries. However much of this work in poor countries is “vulnerable employment”. Of the 3.1 billion working some 1.53 billion are self employed of working poor paid jobs at family businesses. They’re hawkers. That is how the world is feeding itself.

There’s a bipolar labour market through out the entire world and this has been the trend for decades. The top 10% are improving faster than the lowest 10%. This is reported in Canada but it’s a world phenomenon. There’s a talent shortage. Some 34% of firms world wide say they can’t find people. In particular there’s a need for multiple skilled people, or serial masteries as they are calling it. Lockheed Marietta reports that they will have to hire 142,000 engineers by 2019 due to retirement but the USA only graduates 60,000 engineers a year.

Entrepreneurialism is key. In the USA between 1980 and 2005 all private sector net new job creation was in companies 5 years old or less.

[Brenda]

And how many of those young companies did not succeed?
Many small businesses just quit, do not make enough money to make a living, or just go bankrupt...

[Bruce_the_vii]

Brenda wrote:

And how many of those young companies did not succeed?
Many small businesses just quit, do not make enough money to make a living, or just go bankrupt...

I'm sure your right, a lot of entrepreneurial businesses are risky. Nevertheless the statistic is a whopper, it's all new job creation.

All these statistics are open to interpretation. The engineer shortage comes along side rather high level of graduates in science. It's just that engineers won't hire science graduates, although the core science and math is the same. That's an example.

[Bruce_the_vii]

One of the points of The Economist's review of world labour markets and comments about how an individual can win was that job seekers need to clean up their internet persona. In fact the series concluded with a few remarks including this one. The opinionated, nasty and only moderately informed posters around here are an example. They don't exactly speak of adult personalities that would stabilize a company's personnel problems.

[Brenda]

I don't necessarily think an internet persona needs "clean up". It is exactly what it says it is, an "internet persona". My persona and my private me are my business. My work persona is their business, because that is what they pay me for.

[Bruce_the_vii]

We've had this discussion here, Internet comments getting into official hands. Even in my small sample of experience I've heard of troubles. And The Economist magazine concluded an entire special review with the comment. It seems to be an important idea so I just repeated it here. Of course your persona at CKA is popular Brenda, just look at the rep points. Others not so much.

[Brenda]

But my neighbour does not know that that is me, nor does my boss, nor should he care.
And does the amount of rep points mean that you make solid, well thought of comments, or that you are just funny, but say nothing? Does it mean you show intelligence, or that you are just very good at typing what people want to read?

I have a lot of posts on here, but 95% of that is plain bullshit. So what exactly does it mean? Apparently, that people like my typed funnies. Does that mean I am the same way at work, or that I am just good at what I do?

It's all so subjective...

Maybe we ALL (including bosses) should go back to the old "gut-feeling", and "intuition", instead of letters on a screen, typed by someone looking like (in my case) a cute ducky...

[Bruce_the_vii]

I just posted the comment because it was featured in the magazine. Also I thought I would mention it to the nasty posters here. Hiring managers are looking to cover their ass and do look up internet data. Bad personae would not be a sell - just as they aren't here.