Working for the man has its limits

The nature of corporations and work in Australia is forecast to radically change as tasks are more easily outsourced.

Dr Stefan Hajkowics Stefan Hajkowicz, the CSIRO principal scientist in strategic foresight, says technology and economic disruption were breaking down the original reasons to form large firms.

The nature of corporations and work in Australia is forecast to radically change as tasks are more easily outsourced and a far greater proportion of the workforce freelances for multiple ­employers.

Stefan Hajkowicz, the CSIRO principal scientist in strategic foresight, said technology and economic disruption were breaking down the original reasons to form large firms.

“We are seeing the economics of the firm change,” he said.

“The original theories of the firm and why we saw them ­become large and grow were ­because it was more cost-­efficient to get a whole lot of ­people to work for it and produce all the needs. That is no longer the case.”

Dr Hajkowicz said, through technology, it was viable to outsource more tasks ­efficiently. Companies would progressively take advantage of this to avoid carrying large full-time staff numbers in economies that were constantly being disrupted.

He said the world was entering the “era of the entrepreneur” in which many more people “made their own job” through freelancing rather than working for a single company.

Dr Hajkowicz, the author of the recently released book ­Global Megatrends, is one of the speakers at next week’s Asia ­Pacific Cities Summit in Brisbane, which has attracted about 1000 business and government delegates, with speeches from Sebastian Coe, Randi Zuckerberg and Chinese digital giant SY Lau.

Dr Hajkowicz said automation and artificial intelligence would also radically change the nature of work and workplaces over the next 20 years.

“Typically changes in technology initially mean fewer people worker longer hours and earning more,” he said. “In the long term it means all of us get into better jobs with better pay.

“The jobs we do today are so much better than the jobs we got to do 100 years ago and technology is the main reason for that. This next shift in technology will do something similar.”

Dr Hajkowicz said cities were on the verge of becoming super-intelligent with billions of devices and pieces of infrastructure feeding each other data in real time and allowing immediate changes to traffic flows, pedestrian movements, water ­releases and lighting levels.

Despite these advances in technology, humans would continue to value social interaction and cities would need to put even more emphasis on urban spaces, community areas, greenery and livability.