Over at the Harvard Business Review there's speculation that the paradigm of people working full-time for a single employer has outlived its usefulness:
Our vision is straightforward: most people will become independent contractors who have the flexibility to work part-time for several organizations at the same time, or do a series of short full-time gigs with different companies over the course of a year. Companies will maintain only a minimal full-time staff of executives, key managers, and professionals and bring in the rest of the required talent as needed in a targeted, flexible, and deliberate way.
There are two reasons such a flexible work system is now plausible. The first is societal values. Work-life balance and family-friendly scheduling are much more important to today's workers, and companies are increasingly willing to accommodate them. The second is technology. Advances in the last five years have greatly improved the ease with which people can work and collaborate remotely and companies and contract workers can find each other.
The opinion piece goes on to list how workers, employers and society in general will benefit from this shift. What seems to be missing is speculation on the down sides, both to employers and contractors. Originally spotted on The Eponymous Pickle.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday September 06 2015, @05:25PM
You forgot to mention how most corporations will look very unfavorably on employees, even contractors, that also work for other corporations. You'll have the choice of part time for one or nothing at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @12:06AM
Not to mention that a second or even third job are outright impossible when your first temp-job is entirely "on call", with no fixed schedule or any kind of predictability. Even if you do get a second job, you'll lose it just as soon as your first job schedules you to work at the same time your second job; you'll be lucky to even get a week in at the other job before that happens.