20/02/2020
Market Leader Advanced Listening - UNIT 5: EMPLOYMENT TRENDS | Hochay
TRENDS
UNIT 5: EMPLOYMENT TRENDS
2.1
I’m covering for sick leave until the end of the month. Then I hope the agency has something else lined up for me.
2.2
You see, after I had the baby, it was getting to be impossible to combine full-time work with my family commitments. So when my maternity leave was up, they agreed to let me finish at three o'clock instead of five.
2.3
The company wanted to reduce the office costs, and I jumped at the chance to work from home. I don’t miss travelling to the office every day, but I do miss my colleagues… sometimes!
2.4
Like most of my colleagues at the hospital, we have to work on a 24-hour rota, and it's a real problem getting enough sleep, given the strange hours that we sometimes work. It's especially hard when you're working nights.
2.5
I always wanted to start my own business, so when the opportunity came up to take the redundancy package, the time seemed right. It's great being my own boss.
2.6
There's always a group of men at the gates of the construction site in the morning, and a supervisor comes out and picks the people they want to work that day. It's all cash-in-hand, of course.
2.7
It's good to get some money together before I go back to university, so I'm going to be working in a holiday resort this summer.
2.8
My sister came to the USA a few years ago for work and I followed her over. We both clean houses. My son and daughter are still in Mexico with my mother, but I want to bring them here as soon as I can.
2.9
Interviewer: What recent trends have you noticed in employment?
Ian Brinkley: I think there are three big ones. The first one is that jobs have become much more skilled. If you look at the increases in employment, they're all for jobs with high levels of skills. This is a very, very constant change that we've seen over time both in this country, and in other countries.
The second big change has been the industries. The new jobs have come through in service industries, and they've come through particularly in what we call the 'high-value' service industries, and by those we mean hi-tech industries, we mean business services, we mean education services, we mean health services, and we mean the cultural and creative sectors. And these have been the big generators of new jobs, again here, and in other countries.
And a third thing we've noticed, is a lot of this job growth is taking place in major cities, and in particular, we're seeing a big gap open up between those cities that were doing well, and those cities doing badly. And so, this is a big problem because the new jobs are occurring only in certain parts of the country, and other parts of the country they're really seeing little benefit from this job growth.
2.10
Interviewer: How has technology changed the world of work?
Ian Brinkley: One is, it's made things much faster, so the response times of businesses and individuals, that's all speeded up, and so people are expected now to work at a much faster pace than they did in the past.
Secondly, it's placed a big emphasis on communication skills. If you think about all the changes in new technology, most of them are related to communications in some way or another. And so, businesses and individuals who have good communication skills, these are the ones which we've seen develop most.
Interviewer: What advice, in terms of skills preparation, would you give those starting out on their careers now?
Ian Brinkley: I think the most important thing is to get the widest set of skills and experiences that you possibly can. Most employers now are not looking for deep specialists, they want people who can work across a wide variety of tasks within the workplace. So particularly, communication skills, the ability to get on with other people and work in a team, as well as some technical competence. But the most important thing is to make sure that you have got a wide set of skills, rather than just skills in a very, very narrow area.
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Produced by: - 20 February 2020
