The changing face of work

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Flatcaps were all the rage with
workers way back when

1700 – 1780s

Exploration, bountiful materials brought back from the New World, and growth in trade.
Resulting growth in industry, new products developed from new materials.
Emergence of a new middle class demanding new and better-quality goods.
Development of new technologies to support these new industries, leading to…

…Industrial Revolution (1780 to mid 1800s)

Introduction of machines leads to organisation of labour according to function
Mass production means pace of work set by machines and growth of modern factories.
Leads to sub-industry: manufacture of machines.
Rise of cheap labour to increase productivity: meaning women and young apprentices, and entire families working in same factory (just as they had on farms).
Leads to protests about exploitation, and mid-19th century sees return of many women to the home while men continue heavy production work, and the introduction of a minimum age for child labour.
British Factory Act 1833 prohibits under 21s from working at night in cotton mills; limits under 18s to 12-hour days (nine hours on Saturdays).
British Factory Act 1844 sees introduction of maximum 12-hour day for adults and 6.5 for children.
British Factory Act 1850 limits women and children to working between 6am 6pm (in winter) on weekdays and until 2pm on Saturdays.
Development of management hierarchy.
Factory workers work up to 16 hours a day.
Increased urbanisation and population shifts from agricultural areas to cities and towns.
Railways developed.

Post-industrial revolution (late 1800s and 1900s)

Rise of specialist skills, training and apprenticeships. Labour force increasingly divided by skill, necessitating ‘outsourcing’ to specialists.
Rise of skilled, white-collar service or support industries such as accounting, engineering and sales.
Geographic split: rise of machine industries and mass production leads to economic viability of importing raw materials from one country and production and manufacture in another – leading to increased focus on productivity.
Consequently workers’ rights movements and trade unions emerge in the early 1900s.
Technological developments improve productivity, in factories and agriculture.

First World War (1914-1918)

Significant numbers of women recruited into war work (the first time this has happened), particularly in nursing, manufacture of munitions, agriculture and transport.

Second World War (1939-1945)

Women take over workforce in factories and farms as men go to war.
Pressure on women to return to the home after the war, encouraged by the 1943 Beveridge Report, which claimed a housewife/mother had “vital work to do in ensuring the adequate continuance of the British race and of British ideals in the world”.

1945-1970

Post-war boom sees low unemployment (3%).
Increase in productivity and mass production leads to increased employment in new sectors, such as technology, automated machinery.
Labour-saving devices introduced to the home and women return to domestic work in the 1950s.
Many women keen to return to work and employers realise they can pay them lower salaries than they do men, so traditionally male roles (such as teaching and clerical work) increasingly given to women, for less money.

1970s

Married women start to re-enter labour market; automation of many heavy labour tasks mean women can compete with men for jobs outside of offices.
Rising inflation and unemployment creates unstable job market, culminating in the 1979 ‘Winter of Discontent’.

1980s

1990s

Between 1990-95 UK suffers recession and a housing crash.
In 1993 an EC Directive on working time stipulated a 48-hour week limitation, but with voluntary opt-out by employees in some member states. Complete opt-out for UK.
In 1994 an EC Directive on the protection of young people at sets a 40-hour week limitation on 16 and 17 year olds not in full-time education.
Women’s earning potential rises: the percentage of women earning as much as or more than their male partners reaches 44% by 1993 (from 15% in 1973).
Mobile technologies and the internet emerge as major business tools, and as they become more advanced and affordable flexible working grows more viable.
Unemployment falls, reaching lowest levels ever of just under one million in 2001.
Internet use explodes, leading to a ‘dot.com boom’ in late 1990s and creation of numerous instant internet millionaires.

2000s

Broadband introduced to UK in 2000.
In March 2000 the Nasdaq closes at peak of 5048.62, double its value of 14 months before.
But in October 2002 it crashes, plunging to 1114.11 (a loss of 78% from its peak).
In 2003 the UK and rest of western Europe reaches 100% mobile penetration among adults.
Mobile-working technologies (mobile, wireless and hosted services) develop and spread rapidly, allowing flexible, remote and home working.
In 2003 The Flexible Working (Procedural Requirements) Regulations 2002 come into effect. Parents with a child under six or a disabled child under 18 can make a request for flexible working – ie, change the hours or times they work, or work from home – and employers are obliged to consider such requests seriously and only reject them for good business reasons.
Research from 2004 suggests that by 2010, 40% of the UK’s workforce will work freelance or be self-employed. There are 3.6 million self-employed in the UK and almost two thirds of workplaces have staff who have switched from full-time to part-time.
On 6 April 2007 the right to request flexible working was extended to carers of adults.
In 2008 broadband penetration reaches 59% in rural areas and 57% in urban areas.
Ageing population drives increase in ‘semi retirement’. The number of people in Europe age 65 or over will continue rising from 57 million in 1995 to 81 million in 2025, according to OECD research.

Where next?

An increase in age of retirement? “Within the next 20 to 30 years the retirement age in all developed countries will have to move up to around 79 or so – 79 being the age that, in terms of both life and health expectancies, corresponds to age 65 in 1936," according to manaqgement guru Peter Drucker in Management Challenges for the 21st Century.
A shift away from price pressure of urban working, back to rural economy, through home working? (59% of rural areas now have broadband, compared to 57% of urban areas.
Flexible and remote working will inevitably become more widespread – the result of an uncertain employment market, new ‘enabling’ technologies, the rising price of oil (making commuting expensive) and an increasing culture of entrepreneurship.