Jobs market in XXIst century - Employer vs employee

       I want to talk a little about the situation of the employers and employees in the XXIst century which is different than the one me and my family experienced in the XXth century. I will refer about the situation in my own country, Romania, and especially in the area I work which is IT but I think that it can apply in many other areas and countries.

       With the development of the technologies, the increase of life expectancy and life level we, as people, experience some shifting on the job market. When I was a child I dreamed to finish a college and once I finished the college I would find a good job and stay at that company for the last of my life. It was a child's view of the life of grown ups created mainly thanks to my parents who had it as a consequence of the presence of the communism in the country. Even though not everyone stays at a job for 50 years it seems to me that today it is even harder to remain at a workplace for a long period of time and even though there are so much young people to finish a college there are so few who really find a good job.

       Usually a job is occupied when the demands/offers of the employers are able to meet with the offers/demands of the employees. We can see that today something happens with this understanding between the employer and employee because it seems to me that we live in a world where employers are desperate to find employees, employees are desperate to find employers but most of the time they never meet. So I will talk about the demands/offers of the employers and the offers/demands of the employees in the first part of this article and why these demands/offers don't meet in the second part of the article.

       Mainly there are three types of employers: small, middle and big. By small employers I mean companies with 2-10 employees which have as their main target to survive. These kind of companies usually try to have employees with as much skill as possible for which they will pay as less as possible. Most of the people who get hired here are the ones pretty bad in their area or the ones who are students and they want to make the experience asked by companies who would pay better. These companies don't really care about quality or professionalism because they are too busy to survive and more important because they don't afford to. It is pretty hard to demand to your software developer different rules to be respected as long as you pay him with the minimum wage. Another problem with these companies is that they are made by people who are good enough to start a business but not very good on the technical part. And when I say they are not very good on the technical part I mean that they may not understand why they should pay more for QA, for example. More than that, even though there may be young people who will start a business and try to give as much quality as possible most of them will give up because of the amount of money you need to invest and because the small number of clients who might pay along with the product the quality of the product. Most of the clients are people who don't really care about the quality and when they hear that they have to pay a lot more money for the same product others would to with half of the money than they will use the cheaper solution.

       Most of the employees who work here will be unsatisfied with work conditions and salary so they usually spend time on different social apps or other interests they have which isn't really well connected with their job. Because they are payed badly they think they have the right to not give everything to their job forgetting that they were the ones who agreed with the contract. In the same time, for some people, it might appear a feeling of frustration when an employee wants to use new technologies, make a great product but the boss tells him that there is no time and the product should be over as fast as it is possible. Most of the time these employees feel that their employers take advantage of them and think that working really bad they can revenge on their employers. What these people don't understand is their situation: if they can't get a better job that means that they need this job to improve their abilities and get more experienced. If they don't give it all in their job they are hurting themselves because they lose valuable time to get better in their job.

       Of course, there are problems with the employer also but in this particular case is not much you can do. You as employee can't change your employer and can't really hurt him and even if you do, your hurting yourself even more. The employer in this case is in an ugly situation. Normally he should find people who don't work only for their money but who work because they love what to do. If an employer can make the employee to share his vision than things would get even better. But this would mean that, first of all, the employer would have a vision which will be more than a chance to get some more money. Another think which might help in this situation is to consider your employees as partners with who you share your dreams. But even if you try this, there is a pretty big chance to meet lots of employees who all they do is because they need some money and they don't care about vision.

       Second type of employers I want to talk about are the big ones, the corporations. For many outside employees working at a corporation would be their dream. And it isn't hard to think why. I remember that when I quit a job there was a person who was designated to listen to my demands and see if the company can make a counter-proposal so I might remain there. The person asked me at what company I work and when I said the company she made a face of superiority saying “I never heard about this company”. I know that there is a chance she acted like that to make me be afraid at the idea that I would give up working with a huge client for some little company no one ever heard of. It's not the same when you say “I work at Apple” then when you say “I work at Code Factory”. In the same time, working in a corporation gives you the illusion of having a great stability. You think that there are less chances to get fired at a workplace which has 2000 employees than to get fired at a workplace which has 50 employees. As long as you respect your job's minimal demands you should feel safe. Another reason this is a job dream it is given by opportunities you have in a corporation, a lot more than in a smaller company.

       So where is the problem here? First of all, depends a lot of the job you are hired for. There have been cases in newspaper when people complaint that they work as slave in their corporation. I remember about a case when some woman was hired at a call-center and she wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom during her work time. In a corporation you can easily stop existing as a human and become nothing else than a cell of the big organism. And when a cell dies, very easily others take the cell's place. Another problem here might be with your manager. There are people who may want, as you, to get higher and higher on the hierarchical level and they might not care if they will do that taking credit of your work. I, myself, felt the frustration when my manager had no transparency, lied a lot and even change some data so he might look that he has some skills which he didn't. And these are few things I had the luck to discover considering the lack of transparency that manager had. Again there might be managers who might treat you as a slave and the higher managers to know that and have no problem about this. I remember reading a comment of someone who said about a manager who was really tough with his subordonates that lots of them quit their job saying that that manager was too tough. And nobody did anything because he had results and the higher managers didn't care about the humans but only about the results. Another problem in these corporation is that it is extremly hard to change anything. They have everything so perfectly planed than you either become a machine, either you go. If the small companies would represent the children who don't really know what they want to do and how to do it, the corporations are like old people who are extremely hard to change. They are at an age where “only great happiness, or great sorrow can change them” as Marin Preda said in Moromeții. And of course there are the layoffs. When a corporation has a problem with some office it is pretty easy for them to fire hundreds of people. It is about cutting the sick part of your body so your body will be able to be back on its feet.

       What kind of employees work here? Being a corporation it is pretty easy for them to make all kind of trainings so it is very possible that people with less knowledge or experience to be able to work here. It depends a lot on what they are looking for. There are all kind of employees who might work here. From people willing to give it all to their job to the people who are smart enough to get as more money as possible with as much work as possible. Of course that those people are pretty bad at their job but they know how to mask everything. Here, as I said, can work easily people who want to get really high and usually the ones who get at the top are the ones who are ready to walk on that bodies. People who are really good at their job don't really stay here too much. People need freedom and if you feel that you are not free than you go. Of course that if these people are spotted by the corporation, they receive a lot more rights than others.

       The third type of employers I want to talk about are the middle companies. They usually try to give as much as they can to the employee but in exchange they expect for them to do their job right. They take very serious quality because these companies can afford to bring quality to their products and in the same time they care more about their name than about satisfying clients who are too stupid to accept their expertise. They tend to respect their employees and here you have a lot of freedom. Here there is a lot of freedom and some companies may offer some trainings also. The main problem here is that they might demand lots of things at the interview. As I said, they offer quality and they don't have the luxury of corporation too take time with their employees to teach them everything. Even if they might do some trainings they still expect that lots of skills and abilities are already there. In the same time here you don't have so many position on the hierarchical level so you might feel limited a little. Still there are lots of people who come to these companies for the freedom they have here and the chance to do more things that they could to in a corporation. In a corporation you have a very small part in the product's development life cycle while here you a bigger part.

       People who work here are usually people who have a degree of knowledge but, again, here you might meet people who don't care so much about the company and all they want is to do a job and get a salary. They have some basic knowledge which helped them get hired but they don't really evolve because they don't care. Companies, in the same time, need these people because the market is too empty in this area. Of course, here you might meet people who are really good in their job and share the employer's vision: now they can share it because they get payed good enough and their ideas are really taken in consideration.

       In the second part I will talk about the problem in the job market domain for which there are so many jobs unoccupied for months sometimes while there are so many people unemployed.