Despite the three million employees laid off in the 1990s because of restructuring, downsizing, outsourcing, and other factors, today most Americans feel fairly secure about their jobs. In 1996, unemployment fell to 5.4 percent nation-wide and to less than 3 percent in some parts of the country. By May of 1997, national unemployment fell to 4.9 percent. Campus recruiting was better than it had been for the past five years. New jobs outnumbered layoffs. Adaptability is the key. Some effective strategies followed by displaced workers have been to change fields or industries, to move to a smaller, more entrepreneurial firm, to start a business, or to become a consultant.
A Service-Oriented Economy
We live in a service-oriented economy. Roughly 75 percent of all jobs are in the service industry. It is likely that this percentage will rise even higher. The services and retail trade industries will account for 16.2 million of the 16.8 million new wage and salary jobs. Most new college graduates will be employed in a service industry. Health-care services, financial services, and others such as temporary employment services will account for one-fifth of all job growth. The quality of a service is contingent on the performance of the worker and can vary considerably within a firm. For this reason, more firms are realizing the importance of quality and emphasizing excellent quality and rewarding it. The traits most valued in new workers today are communications skills, technical and computer-related expertise, teamwork abilities, and work experience.
The Restructuring of American Corporations
The 1980s were a turbulent period in American business causing major restructuring in corporations. Acquisitions and buyouts changed many corporate identities. Recession and competition from abroad forced downsizing and restructuring. Assigning limited resources in a vastly more complex marketplace was the challenge confronting managers in the 1990s. The business environment of the next decade was characterized by restructuring and downsizing of corporations, global competition, shortened product life cycles, and more demanding customers in terms of quality and convenience. More and more work in America is project-oriented. With shorter product life cycles, new products must be produced faster. These projects are completed by combinations of in-house people, contract workers, and consultants who work together as teams, complete projects, then disband. Such projects as port expansions, hospital restructuring, and nuclear-waste cleanups are done by teams.
The reduction in numbers of mid-level managers is good news and bad news. First the bad news: Advancement in the corporate hierarchy will become increasingly more competitive, and most college graduates will remain in the same jobs for longer periods of time, perhaps five years or more. Also fewer types of positions will be available to new graduates. Now the good news: Even entry-level jobs will be more varied and challenging. Managers with too much to do will be forced to delegate many tasks to lower-level and beginning employees. Project teams will be more widely used as companies attempt a more entrepreneurial approach to product development. Work will be less structured. More freedom, as a result of reduced numbers of supervisors, will enable employees to show what they are able to do.
The Impact 0f Changing Technology
Advances in information and communications technology have revolutionized the workplace of today and created opportunities for companies and individuals that simply did not exist a mere decade ago. Computers are faster, cheaper, smaller, and more versatile than ever before. New technology has enabled managers to make better decisions faster. Sophisticated marketing research analysis such as multivariate statistical analyses too complex to do manually can be done handily on computers. Monitoring the economic and business environments is easier. Responding more rapidly to competition can be accomplished through technological advances in manufacturing equipment. Sales campaigns can be run more efficiently and effectively with improved distribution and inventory techniques made possible through new technology. Improved graphics technology has greatly affected the field of advertising. Breakthroughs in telecommunications technology have furthered the development of branch or satellite offices and the expansion of global operations. The World Wide Web and Internet have fueled the knowledge explosion by making information ever more available.
Telecommuting programs have yielded enhanced productivity, a way to keep valuable employees, and increased employee loyalty. Companies such as Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, and Perkin-Elmer have instituted telecommuting programs that enable members of the sales force to work at home. Other companies such as American Express, Apple, AT&T, Chase Manhattan, Compaq, Ford Motor, General Electric, GTE, IBM, Merrill Lynch, Prudential Insurance, and Sears also have structured telecommuting programs.
Changes in Lifestyles and Values
Individual lifestyles and values have been changing over the years. More and more people are viewing work as a way to maintain lifestyle rather than developing lifestyles consistent with work. The family is taking central importance in the choices people make, both in their careers and as consumers. People are marrying and having children later in life when careers are already in place. Because of economics, in approximately 84 percent of marriages, both the husband and wife work. In these two-career couples, both partners share in family responsibilities and the divorce rate is lessening. Though studies show that it is still the woman who misses work most frequently when children are ill, men are definitely doing more of the shopping. Today, instead of material possessions, a real status symbol for many men is to be able to afford having a wife who doesn't work outside the home.
Personal and professional reasons cause many individuals to examine their quality of life. When corporate demands become such that individuals feel that they cannot devote sufficient time to their families, many professionals look for alternatives such as starting their own businesses. Women with children often work or run their own businesses at home. Telecommuting and home businesses are made possible by information and communications technology.
Contingent workers are self-employed or work part-time and include those who do not work 40 hours a week, year-round, for the same employee. They include a wide variety of workers such as part-time clerks, movie stars, and self-employed doctors and comprise by some counts 30 percent of the workforce. This flexible source of labor makes U.S. business more efficient than its European competitors. Of the roughly 35 million contingent workers, almost 11 million are self-employed by choice or profession. More than 17 million of the 22 million part-time workers do so by choice as well. The other 5 million would like full-time employment.
Geography
Although career opportunities in business occur everywhere in the world, certain cities emerge as the best cities for business. Fortune magazine, using the results of a survey conducted by Arthur Andersen's Business Location Services, ranked the following seventeen cities as the best. Such criteria as culture, technology, and an ample number of knowledge workers were among the factors considered. The chosen cities include Atlanta, Georgia; Austin, Texas; Boston, Massachusetts; Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Houston, Texas; New York City, New York; Phoenix, Arizona; San Francisco, California (bay area); Seattle, Washington; Frankfurt, Germany; Hong Kong; London, England; Paris, France; Singapore; Tokyo, Japan; and Toronto, Canada.
Supply and Demand Projections
Overall, the demand for business majors has been consistently strong. In the areas of sales and marketing, demand has increased, particularly for business-to-business marketers. High-tech knowledge is very much in demand in all areas today and will improve a beginner's chances of getting a good job. The increased number of recruiters on college campuses signals increased demand and will greatly help new graduates in their job search. Most job offers are within the service sector. Substantial increases in offers have come in public accounting, operations research, information systems, merchandising, and consulting.
The rate of job creation has not kept pace with the rate of economic growth. Some explanations for this are that the productivity gains experienced by many companies reduce the need for more employees, downsizing is eliminating many positions, outsourcing certain parts of operations is more efficient than performing the work in-house, and employers are more cautious about adding new positions because hiring and firing costs are growing.
Demand is half of the job market picture; supply is the other half. Supply has not kept pace with demand for entry-level workers. Participation of women in the workforce has leveled off over the past five years. The birth rate has risen, new mothers are slower to return to work, and women are staying in school longer.
Employers will have to compete for qualified workers. With competition from business, universities, and the military, there will not be enough entry-level workers to go around. This bright picture for young, entry-level personnel has a more somber side for older workers. Promotions will continue to be more competitive because of larger numbers of middle-aged workers with obsolete skills, the need to staff lower-level jobs, and the current trend to reduce middle-management positions.
The increasing number of women entering the labor force will easily be recruited, not because of legislation but because of increasing demand and limited supply. This is also true for minorities and the handicapped. The new technologies will increase opportunities for the handicapped to participate in the workforce. Thus employment prospects look very good in the short run. However, with the rising birth rates, young people computer literate in elementary school, and increases in college enrollments with much of the growth in computer science and engineering, it is likely that the supply-demand gap will close.
