The 9-5 working day may become less common

A CNN report begins by asking this question: Is this the end of the nine to five working day? The story cites a few things to show that a big change may be on the horizon for the worldwide labour market.
Of course, we primarily have the information technology revolution to thank for that. Smart firms, the story goes, recruit and outsource smartly as today’s professionals give more importance to independence than ever before.
The so-called project-based career can become a trend. It has to do with professionals who want to do this but don’t want to do that and are thus hired by firms that opt to selectively utilise their talent rather than hire them on a permanent basis.
It appears a win-win situation. The employer can save costs by avoiding full-time employment but manage to get prioritised work done anyway. The professionals can do the thing they love or are good at and maintain a considerable degree of freedom.
CNN quoted a labour expert as saying that the emergence of Millennials in the work forces coincided with the eventual retirement of baby boomers. The latter is arguably the last of the conventional labour force who basically do the same work for eight to nine hours a day for the same company day in and day out until they retire, enjoying job security at the expense of probably something else. The former want a different relationship between work and life and it is these people who are pushing for an alternative to the nine to five working life.
The trend is still blurry, though. But it looks as though the new generations are changing jobs a lot more often than the older ones. Freelance work seems to be more popular among new graduates than before thanks to, again, the increasing convenience in finding projects that suit one’s potential or ability. It used to be said that the new generations don’t have the patience of the older ones when it comes to work, but the truth may be that job satisfaction is an increasingly influential factor in a person’s career.
If the trend becomes clearer, corporates will have to overhaul their labour strategies. Outsourcing will have to become a real department run by competitive, well-connected people who know exactly where to turn to when a specific project comes up. When the outsourcing system becomes more established, poor aspects of freelance work like badly-organised payment will improve. This will send more people into the new-age labour market.
Some experts say the free market era of Southeast Asia will speed up changes of employment in that direction. The Asean Economic Commu-nity will not only trigger labour migration but also transform how the new generations define jobs and how companies carry out projects. Employers will have more choice, but so will job seekers.
The likely change, though, is not limited to the AEC. Forbes has reported that freelancers and independent workers are a growing cadre of the American workforce. Their number has reportedly reached 16 million and could hit 65 million by 2020. In England, a recent survey shows four in 10 people are considering temporary or freelance work in the future.
Everyone should be prepared for such a big change. When the dust settles, the rule of demand and supply will still hold sway. It does not matter whether one is hired on a temporary or permanent basis. At the end of the day, it’s the final result that will prove one’s worth.
A new employment era may be dawning, but an old term, competitiveness, will still apply.