Page 4 - Climate Control News Magazine March 2019

Editorial
False hope, clones and smart phones
Climate Control News
EDITOR
Sandra Van Dijk Ph: (02) 9213 8277 sandravandijk@yaffa.com.au
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TECHNOLOGY
HAS GIFTED US WITH SOME GREAT PROMISES BUT UNFORTUNATELY THE BEST ONES ARE YET TO BE REALISED.
Sandra Van Dijk – Editor
MY FAVOURITE WAS the promise of technology being such an efficient time saver that it would lead to a three day weekend. Clearly that didn't happen. Instead we were enslaved by the smart phone and our weekend disappeared completely. For those of us not yet ready to give up on the four- day working week dream I found new statistics that show it could still happen.
Unfortunately, it won't happen the way we ex- pected.
According to predictions on the biggest busi- ness trends likely to emerge over the next decade there was one that immediately caught my atten- tion. It simply said that by 2030, the workforce will need to prepare for the death of full-time jobs.
At first glance it made sense. In the past, labor costs were considered a fixed cost. From one year to the next employee headcount didn't change too much and wages were pretty constant.
Temporary staff were seasonal and only hired to cover busy holiday periods or spikes in busi- ness activity.
But that is changing as businesses look at ways to avoid surplus full-time labor.
The solution is to keep a small, core group of full- time staff that is supported by a much larger group of contractors and part-time workers.
This is already widespread in low-skilled jobs but will gradually become the norm for white-col- lar professionals as well.
Futurist speaker, Thomas Frey, predicts over 2 billion jobs will disappear over the next decade, re- turning in different forms with over 50% structured as freelance projects rather than full-time jobs. That's a workforce made up with a lot of freelanc- ers. So yeah maybe we will get our four day week, but at what cost?
In other predictions, Frey said that by 2030 over 20% of all new construction will be “printed” buildings. I am trying to imagine what a construc- tion site of the future will look like.
But best of all I am looking forward to the hot topics of 2030. Frey predicts that it will be the year when we will be busy debating issues around the creation of space colonies and flying cars. In fact Frey predicts that it will be the year a new protest group will emerge that holds anti-cloning rallies, demonstrating against the creation of “soul-less” humans.
Hell, I know a few soul-less people already and its only 2019 (joking). Until next month, keep those false hopes in check.
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