The labor environment and the specifics of the employees’ activities at their workplaces are changed significantly under the impact of globalization tendencies which can be discussed as characteristic features of the social and economic development in 21st century.
Several decades ago, the job of the majority of people was closely associated with that definite workplace where employees could perform their functions as professionals. Thus, the activity of the staff depended on the place where they worked.
Today, the situation is often rather opposite to the traditional vision of the occupational activity associated with the certain workplace. Many people have the opportunity to work in the international or foreign companies without leaving their houses.
The other persons can freely work in the foreign countries to perform effectively as professionals in the definite field. Modern technologies allow the public’s avoiding all the geographical boundaries at their way to the desired work.
The distributed workforce influenced by the globalization processes and dependent of the technological progress is characteristic for the modern work environment, and it is significant for forming a new social identity based on the occupational identity.
Today, it is typically to refer to the labor market as independent from any boundaries. This vision is the result of the globalization tendencies.
Moreover, the globalization process is closely connected with the idea of multiculturalism according to which laborers as the representatives of different cultures and nationalities can work together to complete the project and present the definite result.
If several years ago work was often discussed as geographically tied, today a lot of migrations are characteristic for the labor market. Furthermore, this statement is right both for the people’s migrations and for the distribution of work.
According to Huws, “there has thus been a double uprooting—a movement of jobs to people and a movement of people to jobs” (Huws Fixed, Footloose, or Fractured 1). From this point, the mentioned situation created the conditions for the further accent on the distributed workforce as the characteristic feature of the modern labor environment.
Huws pays attention to the fact that “the combination of technological change and globalization is bringing about fundamental changes in who does what work where, when, and how” (Huws Fixed, Footloose, or Fractured 1).
That is why, it is important to concentrate not only on the trends of globalization but also on the technological progress as the trigger for the further changes in the field.
The technological progress has affected the development of the concept of the distributed workforce significantly.
Today, employers pay much attention to the workers’ skills and knowledge without references to their location because it is possible to perform effectively and complete the tasks with the help of many modern technologies and software, being in any part of the world.
Thus, according to Huws, the contemporary labor market is divided into fixed jobs and footloose jobs.
Huws accentuates that fixedness is the characteristic of the traditional approach to the organization of work, “fixedness is the need for physical proximity to a particular spot, because the job directly involves the making, mending, cleaning, or moving of physical goods or the delivery of real personal services to people in real time and real space” (Huws Fixed, Footloose, or Fractured 2).
However, in the modern world, footloose jobs become more spread because of the potential flexibility of the workers. The accents are made on the quality of the work, but not on the location of the person who has completed it.
Many researchers argue that the modern work environment where footloose jobs and the phenomenon of the distributed workforce are prevailing is oriented to employees with the developed IT skills in order to respond to the requirements of the market.
Thus, ‘cyberworkers’ influence the social structures in cities based on the principles of employment and “they may become conduits for spreading the values and cultures of multinational corporations outward into their local communities and down the value chain into supplying companies” (Huws Fixed, Footloose, or Fractured 7).
However, the process of migrations and avoiding the occupational boundaries is also characteristic for people who do not work with communication technologies and do not have the developed IT skills. In this case, the general principle of transforming the labor market without references to the geographical boundaries works.
In her article “The Making of a Cybertariat? Virtual Work in a Real World”, Huws states that “not all the new delocalized work involves technical software skills. In many developing countries there has also been a major growth in lower-skilled clerical work, such as data entry and typing, and in call-centre work” (Huws The Making of a Cybertariat 18).
Thus, it is also important to focus on the correlation between the changes in the social structures in cities, in the notion of the social identity based on the concept of the occupational identity, in the public’s attitude toward fixed and footloose jobs as the requirements of the modern development of the society.
Nevertheless, it is possible to refer to the ideas that the real impact of globalization processes on the labor market is not as positive as the experts claim.
The changes in the principles of work distribution brought a lot of changes in the whole system and affected the public in relation to the economic security and guarantees (Cao, Prakash, and Ward 320).
Thus, today it is appropriate to use the fixed-term contracts where the terms of the work are rather short. The process is caused by the high level of the market competitiveness, and this situation contributes to creating some problems for employees when it is rather beneficial for employers.
However, new tendencies in the organization of work and alternations in the labor market are important for forming a new occupational identity which is based on the more active role of the person’s individualism, developed skills, and high and effective performance.
Globalization and the associated processes have led to changing the principles to discuss the work as associated with the certain place and territory. The traditional vision of the question is also inappropriate for the discussion of the social and occupational identities.
The era of progressive communication technologies provide people with a lot of opportunities to choose between fixed and footloose jobs according to their own priorities, but not because of the definite national or cultural boundary.
Modern employees work in the world without boundaries that is why the distributed workforce is important today to follow all the changes in the economic and labor environment immediately.
Moreover, the changes in the understanding of the occupational identity also influenced the particular features of the social identity of those people migrate or live in the cities changed according to the social structures.
Works Cited
Cao, Xun, Aseem Prakash, and Michael D. Ward. “Protecting Jobs in the Age of Globalization: Examining the Relative Salience of Social Welfare and Industrial Subsidies in OECD Countries”. International Studies Quarterly 51.1 (2007): 301–327. Print.
Huws, Ursula. “Fixed, Footloose, or Fractured: Work, Identity, and the Spatial Division of Labor in the Twenty-First Century City”. Monthly Review 57.10 (2006): 1-10. Print.
“The Making of a Cybertariat? Virtual Work in a Real World”. Social Register 37.1 (2001): 1-23. Print.