The EIU: In your view, how will labour markets evolve in the next 10-15 years? Professor Robert Reich: Jobs will become ever less secure. Most people will not be able to predict from one month to the next how much they’ll earn. Their hours will be less predictable as well. What is the cause of this trend? Companies are moving from a fixed-cost business model to a variable-cost model so that they can be more nimble. Employment is the biggest cost of all, so obviously a variable-cost job also means less secure and less predictable employment. Is it a global phenomenon? It’s the direction in which all work is heading, but the United States is in the lead. Other nations impose more regulations and constraints in order to make work more secure and predictable, and some nations still have relatively strong labour unions that are also holding on to more secure and predictable forms of work. How is this trend manifesting itself already today? In all sorts of ways: more contract work, more freelancing, more temporary work, more part- time work, more work based on billable hours, and less certain hours and pay even for people considered to be full-time employees. SPONSORED BY: AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE As companies seek greater cost variability, jobs will become less secure and companies more transient In the face of rapid technological change and a globalised economy that allows new entrants to disrupt markets at the drop of a hat, businesses increasingly crave agility. In many cases, companies will seek to achieve that agility by growing the section of their workforce that consists of temporary, part-time or freelance workers. This will have significant ramifications for workers’ lives. As Robert Reich, chancellor’s professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, explains in this interview with The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the shift will place increased pressure on workers to promote their professional profiles to win work, while reducing their ability to borrow against future earnings. Meanwhile, the very nature of companies themselves will shift, from communities with a shared identity to fluid associations of workers temporarily united behind a brand. This will radically reshape the way companies employ and deploy human resources, and what it means to be a business. This interview is part of an investigation into the future of work by The Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by Ricoh Europe. For more, visit http://bit.ly/eiufuturework Professor Robert Reich Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley Photo: Perian Flaherty