Toil and trouble

Society needs hard facts about changing working patterns in order to plan for the future, argues Valerie Bayliss.

What is really happening to the patterns of working lives and careers? Suddenly, all the papers are full of gloomy pieces about the collapse of jobs as we have known them, under the impact of technological change, the globalisation of markets and, if your taste runs that way, the triumph of Anglo-Saxon-style capitalism. We read of the end of work, of the need to turn ourselves into portfolio people, and of the stresses caused by workaholic cultures.

Of course, something is going on. Some cynics will cite the imminent general election and the political mileage to be got out of focusing on job insecurity. Other cynics will point to the political convenience for some of "proving" that in a more harshly competitive world, there is less scope for collective welfare provision, so that individuals must fend much more for themselves. But insecurity is a factor in other countries than this one, and a lot of the analysis about the death of the job comes from elsewhere; we are not dealing with a local difficulty here. Is the problem a political one, or is it real?

The evidence for some big changes is strong. The reducing proportion of employment with large firms, the increase in self-employment, the feminisation of the workforce, are all facts. The effects of increased pressure on individuals are clear, and Cary Cooper wrote persuasively in the THES earlier this year about the price families - and ultimately society - will pay for the changing balance of the claims of home and work. But does this justify the view that the job for life has gone, that people will no longer have careers as conventionally understood, and that we must resign ourselves to living with insecurity? And if the analysis is accurate, have we thought through all the implications?

The first thing to be said is that for all the acres of print devoted to the problem, no one is quite sure of the extent of change, let alone its nature. There are plenty of statistics to quote. We know that manufacturing employs far fewer people than it did even a decade ago (and speculate that it will never recover its pre-eminence as a source of jobs). We know that jobs in the service sector have increased and speculate that areas like financial services will soon see big shake-outs as technology changes. We know that full-time jobs are in decline (down to 60 per cent of the workforce) while part-time ones have increased. We know there is more self-employment, and we know that the voluntary sector is fast becoming a major source of new paid jobs, although it is difficult to get at the facts through the official statistics, which some would say have not caught up with developments in the real world.

But then there are other facts, such as that average job tenure for men has hardly changed in the past 30 years, and that the net reduction in full-time jobs for men is 207,000 since 1984, or less than 1 per cent of the workforce - which does not sound like a revolution. So just what is going on?

We also need to keep a sense of historical perspective. How many of us could say what proportion of the workforce, over the last century, enjoyed jobs for life? Most unskilled and semi-skilled workers have never had that security or, indeed, careers, if by that we mean a lifetime's work in a single skill or profession, marked by a steady, if usually slow, increase in skills, responsibility and pay.

And yet, and yet. There is enough in the figures to worry all of us, and people's perceptions of the destabilising effects of labour market change are themselves important influences on behaviour. The belief that in future the creation of wealth may not bring the creation of jobs has taken a hold. If it turns out to be true, and that patterns of working lives are changing radically and permanently (the two are of course not the same) then the implications are huge.

If we are going to ease the transition from the old to the new, society needs to begin to start thinking and planning now. We need, first and foremost, an objective look at everything that has been happening in the labour market in the past 30 years, not just the last decade. Some of the trends now under discussion, for example the rise in part-time working, began that far back. We need to know about the rate of change, as well as what is changing. Then, once we can see clearly what is really happening we can extrapolate on a variety of assumptions to create some frameworks for thinking about the problems that will have to be dealt with.

Given this sort of map, sensible route-planning becomes possible. How, for example, can the housing market be managed if employment patterns become insufficiently stable to sustain the level of mortgages people now expect? What are the challenges for the pensions industry? What kinds of education and training will be required in a much more mobile labour force, and where does the responsibility lie for meeting the costs? If patterns of employment generally are much more intermittent, what are the social consequences and who should deal with them? What sort of social security system will be needed? Are there adequate fiscal incentives to maximise employment? How can we adapt the traditional work ethic so as not to marginalise those without paid work? What role might the voluntary sector play in supporting new working patterns, and should we or could we be taking steps to recognise more effectively a wider range of activity as contributing to the common wealth? These are only some of the questions which need to be answered.

It would be wrong to suggest that no one is taking these issues seriously. But we lack an overall framework which pulls together all the elements in a way which allows us to assess interactions and, in particular, to see where the gaps are and which problems are not being thought through. The issues are so great and potentially so disruptive that such a framework becomes a necessity if society is to have a chance to address them properly. This is precisely why the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce has decided to launch "Redefining Work" as its major project over the next few years. The project aims to produce an analytical framework of the kind described, as the basis for stimulating national debate on solutions to the complex of questions that face us. The debate is crucial to our futures. There will be plenty of opportunities to join in, and we hope many will do so.

Valerie Bayliss is director of the RSA's Redefining Work project.