{"id":27456,"date":"2018-01-19T03:57:58","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T11:57:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=27456"},"modified":"2018-01-17T22:40:23","modified_gmt":"2018-01-18T06:40:23","slug":"ever-changing-job-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2018\/01\/19\/ever-changing-job-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"Ever-changing job landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prof. Ilana Gershon\u2019s latest book is Down and Out in the New Economy<\/em>. (photo from Ilana Gershon)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

An increasing number of people in their 50s and 60s are needing or wanting to find work \u2013 and are finding that next job elusive.<\/p>\n

Indiana University anthropology professor Ilana Gershon has been researching the (often unsuccessful) ways in which job seekers look for work. One result of this research is her latest book: Down and Out in the New Economy: How People Find (or Don\u2019t Find) Work Today<\/em> (University of Chicago Press, 2017).<\/p>\n

Long gone are the days that employers just want an extra pair of hands to do a job, said Gershon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used to have an idea of ourselves as workers, in which we imagined we owned ourselves, as if we were property,\u201d she explained. \u201cThis was the metaphor \u2013 that we were renting ourselves to an employer for a certain period of time and, when the time was over, we\u2019d get ourselves back. The idea of renting ourselves as though we were property really affected the ways you could have particular ideas, of what was a just work relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you thought you could have arguments about whether you should have a 40-hour work week or not, about how much time you should be able to rent yourself to an employer … and people would have legal cases and legislation around the boundaries of work. Should people be paid for putting on a uniform that would make them be work ready or should they put on a uniform in their own time, and should employers only pay for them once they put on the uniform?\u201d<\/p>\n

Gershon said this metaphor very much shaped how people thought about what was appropriate and what was not.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the other consequences of that is that unions were able to argue that, in fact, people were not just renting a portion of their day,\u201d she said. \u201cUnions argued that they were renting a portion of their lives and, as a result, the companies owed them health insurance or a pension … that they should be reimbursed for giving over a portion of their lives to the company.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other side of the equation were the companies, which were very interested in ensuring there was some form of company loyalty.<\/p>\n

According to Gershon, in the United States and the United Kingdom, after Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher took power, respectively, things began to change. People began to imagine themselves as though they were a business \u2013 as a bundle of skills, assets, qualities, experiences and relationships that had to be consciously managed like a business. And, as a business, continual enhancement was required.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people are entering into an employment contract, that now means they are entering into a business-to-business contract, in which they are offering temporary solutions for market-specific problems a company experiences,\u201d explained Gershon. \u201cSo, now you have all these self-help articles that talk about being the CEO of Me Incorporated.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the other consequences of this is people now talk a lot about having a personal brand. Because, if you imagine yourself as a business, then you should have a personal brand, as businesses have brands. So, a lot of the ways in which people understand what the employment contract can now offer them is being shaped by this change in metaphor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"book<\/a>Gershon\u2019s research on the topic began in 2012, with the interviewing of people around Indiana University and her attending one or two job search workshops available to undergrad students. In 2013\/2014, while being a fellow at Stanford\u2019s Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences, she did field work in the Bay Area in California.<\/p>\n

Not everything regarding the job market is new, she said. \u201cPeople already know a lot about hiring, because they participated in hiring in their previous workplaces … and they shouldn\u2019t ignore everything that they already know.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying very hard not to make it a Silicon Valley project,\u201d she said of her research. \u201cI was very concerned about that, because, what I wanted to do was think about the hiring ritual in general. I interviewed people in the Midwest and East Coast about this \u2013 not as many people as I interviewed in the Bay Area, but I wanted to check if I saw any difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe major difference I saw was that the people had a very different idea of how much time you should spend at a job. People in the Bay Area thought the ideal time you spend at a job was two to three years. And, in the Midwest, it was something more like seven to 10. On the East Coast, it was more like five to eight.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Gershon, she worked hard to produce an \u201canti-advice book.\u201d Her aim was to focus the book on the implications of thinking of yourself as a business and how that has changed hiring and affected what employment contracts have become. Further, she wanted to explore how one should present themselves as an employee, and what employers feel are desirable traits in candidates.<\/p>\n

One of Gershon\u2019s findings is that the new concepts are now standard fare in all job search workshops.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are being told to do this, but people in the trades and blue collar workers don\u2019t seem to find this way of thinking terribly useful yet,\u201d she said. \u201cSo, the people for whom it fits their situation best are going to be white collar workers for the most part.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, whether or not everyone finds the ideas useful, they are being encouraged.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople working retail are constantly being told they have to brand themselves,\u201d said Gershon by way of example. \u201cI don\u2019t think this particular way of trying to brand yourself constantly or imagine yourself as a business is making all that many people happy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you haven\u2019t been in the workforce for 15 to 20 years and you\u2019re suddenly going to these job search places where they\u2019re telling you everything is new and the ways you used to look for jobs no longer make sense … it\u2019s all very confusing. I\u2019m offering the context for that, explaining why things might seem new, and what\u2019s genuinely new and what isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think figuring out how to get a job is actually something you have to do specifically for your particular industry,\u201d she added. \u201cPeople offer a lot of standardized advice, as though there\u2019s a magic bullet that works in every context. What I\u2019m talking about is how not to engage with that kind of standardized advice. Instead, figure out how to do the research so that you can understand those communities on your own.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebeca Kuropatwa<\/strong> is a Winnipeg freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prof. Ilana Gershon\u2019s latest book is Down and Out in the New Economy. (photo from Ilana Gershon) An increasing number of people in their 50s and 60s are needing or wanting to find work \u2013 and are finding that next job elusive. Indiana University anthropology professor Ilana Gershon has been researching the (often unsuccessful) ways […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[3200,5824,7743],"class_list":["post-27456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-economics","tag-employment","tag-ilana-gershon"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}