Along with Schwab’s three main landscaped of the technological drive that he deciphered into three distinct trends (physical, digital and biological), he soon discusses ‘The Nature of Work’ where the “dominant worker paradigm is a series of transactions” between the employee and employer. By using reference to Daniel Pink’s Free Agent Nation, the trend itself has been accelerated by technological innovation where the on-demand economy is ultimately effecting our relationship with work and the social fabric which go hand in hand.
In todays workforce, an on-demand economy is seeing a shift in the job description of the employee where independant workers are contracted to perform specific tasks. As Arun Sundararajan put it in an article in the New York Times by Farhad Manjoo, “We may end up with a future in which a fraction of the workforce will do a portfolio of things to generate an income”. This idea that that a human being will undertake a variety of jobs is subsequently happening today where your average Uber driver is also an accountant or school teacher looking to generate another form of income in a society where the cost of living is ultimately going up on a yearly basis.
The human cloud itself is becoming a huge winner for both the employer and the employee. For the latter, the main advantages reside o the freedom and the unrivalled ability to choose when and where to work. the so called job stresses that has plagued the workforce since the beginning of time is today being immune from such issues. For the former, companies are reaping the rewards as the workers are classified as ‘self-employed’ so they are free of the requirement to pay minimum wages, employer taxes and social benefits. Daniel Callaghan from the Financial Times declares in todays market, “you can whoever you want, whenever you want, exactly how you want it. And because they’re not employees you don’t have to deal with the employment hassles and regulations”.