Lesson 3

Megatrends with global impact

Doomsday scenarios about the future certainly exist: robotization will bring the end of time and gigantic cyclones or meteorites will mean the end of the earth…

In reality it is much more nuanced. Yes, technology and climate play a role, but how does that really affect the labor market and organizations that are active in it?

1. Four megatrends will have global impact:

2. Technological developments

3. Increasing demographic pressure

4. Shortage of talents

5. New economic relations

Mega trend 1: technological developments

Technological developments continue and new applications are becoming faster, smarter and different. In addition, new technological developments are also increasingly accepted by users. In 1873, the year electricity was discovered, it took 46 years for a quarter of the American population to use this technological invention. How different it is almost 125 years later when the world wide web was discovered in 1991: within just 7 years, a quarter of all Americans were using that technology.

Closer to the theme of work is the contribution of technological developments and transparency on the labor market: employers have been able to view what potential employees have done in the past via social media such as LinkedIn and Facebook since the late 1990s. It should no longer be a secret that employees nowadays also look at employers themselves to find out whether they are a match at all via a site like Glassdoor.

Megatrend 2: increasing demographic pressure

Figures from the World Bank show that we are living longer on this planet, partly as a result of better healthcare. At the same time, they choose to go through life with fewer children, partly as a result of increasing female labor participation. In the Netherlands, as in many European countries, the effect of the post-war baby boom that will retire in the coming years also plays a role. The result is increasing demographic pressure: a smaller employed labor force must provide for the non-employed labor force.

Mega trend 3: shortage of talents

Reiner Strack explains how, for example, demographic development affects the supply on the labor market. In order to maintain the German economy, the demand for labor will only increase towards 2030. This does not only apply to Germany, but to numerous European countries as well as in the rest of the world.

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