Log In
E-mail or User ID
  Keep me signed in
Recover Password
Create an Account

Are Labor Markets Technological Dinosaurs

The way labor moves about from one job to the next and the way companies find, recruit and hire labor is the technological equivalent of buying pork bellies in the slaughter yards 100 years ago.


Wingham Rowan, the founder of a British company called Slivers-of-Time recently spoke of A New Kind of Job Market at TED in London. In this talk he asked what would happen if stocks and bonds were traded by a person who got up each morning, outlined the key requirements she needed, posted it on several websites, then waited patiently for someone to respond (with over half the responses not even fitting the basic requirements). This wouldn't be tolerated in the equities market, but this is how it's done in the "Labor Market". 


In Mr Rowan’s line of thinking: Labor Markets could be as efficient as Stock Markets and the only thing holding us back is the lack of a national (and international) infrastructure to support the environment. He goes on to use the example of how quickly in both the US and Great Britain, national Lotteries were built in less than a year. This was done because people were motivated by the economic advantage.


He suggests governments could sponsor privately funded initiatives that would grant exclusive rights to the builders but would provide open access to everyone who wants to use it. (Sounds a bit like the phone company of old doesn't it?)


He thinks that would be incentive enough for big players like IBM, Google, Microsoft and others to want to create and host these labor exchange markets.


Interesting idea.


Just think about it, you could speculate on Java Developer Futures (sounds so much nicer than pork bellies).


Do you think anyone would speculate on HR Directors? (I bet they'd be all the rage!) 


Comment on this article

Leave a Comment

Connect to this blog to be notified of new entries.
You are not logged in.
Sign In to post unmoderated comments.
Join the community to create your free profile today.
Keyword Tags:  HR Trends   HR Ideas   HR Innovations   HR Future

Receive the latest blog posts:
Share Your Perspective
Toolbox for HR Recognition