Do you want to get your sanity back? I would bet my last dollar on the remote workforce to bring the world to its knees. Why When one thinks about the new year and beyond, there are thoughts about job survival and longevity. First and foremost, is how do I survive in an economy turned upside down? How can I subsist in an environment when everyone else all around me are thinking the same thing?
Are remote job seekers over educated ?
In Research paper No. 940 titled “Causes of Over education in the Australian Labor Market, from the University of Melbourne, Department of Economics, job competition theory is explored. Economists and organizational / industrial psychologists posit that the foundation of job competition rests upon the shoulders of everyone vying for the same high wage jobs as everyone else. This creates a heavy load on the demand side. And, at the same time it gives employers on the supply side lots of leeway. Employers may choose to hire on the lowest end of the high wage pay scale. Or they might offer fewer benefits while at the same time requiring more bang (increased work hours, greater output, best quality, enhanced customer / client service). Employers and recruiters may employ this tactic to receive less mouth (reduced staff complaints, lower requests for professional development opportunities). You get the picture.
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Fill the gap between remote job skills and employer remote job requirements
Anyway, in addition to the imbalance between supply and demand, job competition theory thrives upon the plethora of people wanting the same high wage jobs. To sift through the supply, employers rate workers on similar scales by asking and obtaining the answer to the proverbial question, how much will it cost to train this individual? In times past, the barometer has been the higher the level of education the candidate as obtained, the lower the on-the-job-training costs (Thurow, 1975). This business best practice still holds true today. Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce has found that “higher levels of education tend to lead to higher lifetime earnings.” But, as we have seen, earning a college degree or being in possession of a post graduate degrees does not confer the same stamp of approval as in years past. They are not the panacea they once were. Even Harvard Business Review (HBR) writes of instances in which business leaders representing major employers musing about the gap between what recent college graduates were taught and their readiness for entry level jobs upon graduation. To prove their point, HBR cited data revealing that about 40% and higher people in OECD countries have earned a bachelors degree while about 50% in the US from the age of 25 to 24 years have earned a four-year university degree. above 40% of 25 to 34-year-olds in OECD countries, and nearly 50% of 25 to 34-year-olds in America. So, what the experts are really telling us now is that the degree isn’t the best chafe to use for separating the wheat from the shaft or for finding the diamond in the rough, or the needle in the haystack.
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So why write about this now, in this remote work, work from home, work from anywhere remote job forum? Because of all of the high paying jobs offered in the world today; job searchers on the job hunt for jobs prize those that are remote and hybrid with flexible working arrangements.
The Washington Post writes about how remote job vacancies and remote job opportunities are beginning to dry while they remain in high demand by job seekers. Journalists write about remote job search conditions whereby job offers are reneged, bonuses are few, wage increases are nonexistent, and the days in which remote work are allowed are being reduced from five days per week, to one or two.
Particularly in the global world of work (remote work, in office work, hybrid work, or work from anywhere), there isn’t so much a misalignment between the gap of skills in possession by the job candidate and those required by the employer as the colossal crater between remote work attributes and the added flexibility of work hours and work days in comparison to employers who don’t not see the financial don’t want to budge. Why should they? Employers, in this instance, are truly in the driver’s seat. Some may not see the advantages of changing the traditional job requirements to one in which the employee must report to an in office work campus full time verses a remote job with work location flexibility.
Low paying remote jobs and high paying remote jobs in demand
But this article isn’t written solely for remote job candidates seeking high paying working from home jobs, it also seeks to address the growing movement for workers of all skill levels (and therefore wage needs) to seek out remote jobs also. In the same article appearing in the Washington Post, Abha Bhattarai writes about the experience of job seekers on the lower salary rungs. Demand for remote job opportunities in the customer service, insurance, health care, and online retailing has been brisk. It seems as though everyone, meaning everyone in the workforce, or on the fringes are enticed by the positive features of working from home.
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For these reasons, the increased demand for remote work regardless of pay scale and the lowered pressure by employers to sweeten the pot for the employed as well as the jobless we turn back to research study from the University of Melbourne. Even though the purist form of the job competition model removes the effect of educational attainment; in real world practice, job applicants, seeking to improve their position in the hiring cue have traditionally used credentials earned by years in formalized educational programs. This reactionary tendency leads to the useless pursuit of over credentialing. That’s why we have 40 to 50% of the workforce in many developed and mature economies holding the equivalent of a four-year degree. But the conditions of over education doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Not all the educated beings in the world obtain a job for which they are best suited. Many are over educated and underemployed. Hence the over educated and underemployed workers, in turn, force out (not intentionally) the lower-skilled workers into even lower, low skilled, lower paid jobs. Or, as the researchers suggest, they are forced “out of the labour market entirely. ”
Over education not the way for remote job seekers to break from the pack
Are you looking for a secure remote job close to your home, but lack a degree? Some progressive states, reports US News have removed the four-year degree requirement as a ‘must have’ credential to obtain a state government job (often offering remote and hybrid working arrangements). Which states? Utah, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Large municipalities like Denver, St. Paul and Philadelphia are also eyeing vocational programs and apprenticeships to give recent graduates a jump start on viable employment.
How do we break this cycle of self-destruction? In closing, remote job seekers may offer clues for ways to break the self destruction cycle. Thurow would argue that rational job seekers in search of jobs will continue to invest in education to defend their position in the labour queue” (1975, p.96). We can begin to see now how this antiquated ideology is unraveling. With the advent of new remote work derived markets and entrepreneurial type online business opportunities driven by social influencers, podcast and independent documentary producers, freelancers, gig economy workers and content creators, those past activities believed to be rational at one point in time, prove the validity of Einstein’s Theory of Insanity, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” People in search of remote jobs and those that are forging a new path may usher in a new world and a new way of thinking for the benefit of all of humanity.
