The Employment Market - Technology, Skills and Part-time Working

  Technology and skills

Developments in telecommunications and computing are dramatically changing the nature of work and the way it is performed and managed. (...) the importance of skill and knowledge will increase commensurately. (...) Technology is also changing the organization of work. (...) People management must change to meet new realities.

  Ambition: IT - UK Government initiative to fill 5,000 vacant jobs in the IT industry with the long-term unemployed.

  78% of office workers using computers more - 78% of the sample spent more time working at their computers in May 2001 than they did five years ago - 68% saying they spent at least six hours a day at their computers (HRM Guide Canada).

  Business and technology have a rocky marriage - Towers Perrin study finds that companies maintain Web technology investments despite economic uncertainty, disappointing results and pressures to contain costs (HRM Guide Canada).

  E-mails Damaging Efficiency - Three out of four respondents to this survey felt the volume of information received had a negative impact on the effectiveness of staff, reduced productivity and the quality of company communication. (HRMGuide.co.uk).

  Big brother is definitely watching - An estimated 41 million "online" workers have their e-mail or Internet access monitored. About 14 million employees are under "continuous" surveillance whereas the others are open to spot checks or "reasonable suspicion" searches of computer records. (HRM Guide USA).

  When employees are addicted to the web - A quarter of employees in a recent survey said they felt addicted to the Internet, but only 8% of companies seemed to be aware of the phenomenon of workplace 'cyber-addiction'. (HRM Guide USA).

  Part-time working

This section of Human Resource Management in a Business Context lists basic types of part-time work, both traditional and current together with relevant statistics and a comment on employer attitudes.

  Leaving Jobseeker's Allowance for part-time work  UK survey demonstrates characteristics of people taking up part-time work

  Higher proportion of people working on casual basis  A fifth of all employed people consider themselves to be employed on a casual basis, according to recent results from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

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