Since the late 1980s, several workplace trends have emerged in the United States that are already having a profound impact on American workers and educational institutions seeking to prepare workers for the new workplace. The social contract that promised job security in exchange for employee loyalty has been broken.
American companies continue to downsize, restructure and lay off thousands of workers.
Work that is not considered to be part of the core competency of the corporation is being outsourced or performed by temporary, part-time, or contract workers. Today, the largest employer in the U.S. is Manpower, the temporary staffing firm, and 20 percent of Manpower's growth is in the placement of highly-skilled professionals in temporary positions. Full-time permanent jobs and the socioeconomic benefits associated with them will be reserved for a few, select, core employees. Thanks to new technology and the changing nature of work itself, fully 60 percent of the workforce today perform jobs for which physical location is no longer critical. Already, one-third of American households have at least one person performing compensated work at home for at least one day per week.