The Workforce Is About to Change Dramatically

My humbler assertion is that 2020 has punctured my confidence that the internet cannot encroach on the benefits of urban density and proximity. Going forward, many fledgling companies may agree, as they find that the city in the cloud essentially acts as a more accessible version of the city on the Earth, eerily reproducing its forces of agglomerat... See more

It leads to major cost savings for companies. Tech is evolving rapidly, and the truth is that some jobs might become obsolete, making specialized, temporary skills more valuable.

This shift aligns with a cultural change where people are less loyal to long-term employers and more interested in using their skills independently to earn more.

This chan... See more

The shift to online education, remote work, gaming, live conferencing, and leisure is a new form of agglomeration. A leading indicator, consumers have contributed to the first period of inflation for electronic products in over a decade. Over quarantine, these purchases provided gateways to work, socializing, and play. But if these behaviors become... See more

• The research firm IDC estimates that 30 percent of American workers now work on their own and that by 2015, the number of nontraditional workers worldwide (freelancers, contractors, consultants, and the like) will reach 1.3 billion.2 The sharpest growth will be in North America, but Asia is expected to add more than six hundred million new solois

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As a general rule of human civilization, we’ve lived where we work. More than 90 percent of Americans drive to work, and their average commute is about 27 minutes. This tether between home and office is the basis of urban economics. But remote work weakens it; in many cases, it severs the link entirely, replacing spatial proximity with cloud-based ... See more