20 Trends that Will Shape the Next Decade: Part Three – Economic Trends

Part Three of a four-part series on the future of work and the developments impacting contingent workforce management focuses on economic trends. This series continues to identify select perspectives contained in the comprehensive “2020 Report – 20 Trends that Will Shape the Next Decade” and other corroborating sources.

“Industrializing Countries Emerge as the New Engine for Global Growth” says the top line trend in the economics section of the report. World Population Review data shows the list of newly industrialized countries contributing to this trend. While 1 billion new entrants to the global middle class will boost consumer spending, the future of work will assuredly involve expanding operations into new, foreign markets. Understanding the widely divergent laws and regulations governing labor practices in each disparate nation will be a challenge for any organization. Employers of Record (EOR) services will become even more important to helping business operate in full compliance wherever they decide to operate.

Demand for qualified talent to work in healthcare related fields will tighten further from today’s already constrained environment as “Health and Wellness Spending Soars” according to Intuit 2020. Global Wellness Institute data underscores the meteoric growth of this economic sector on this statistics and facts page. Factors like rising costs, aging populations, increasing pollution worldwide and the expanding use of highly specialized health and wellness technology, services and medications will add to the demand for talent to develop, market and administer these products and services. All Labor Department projections support the notion that healthcare jobs will continue to lead growth. As a result, sourcing of medical and associated skill sets will continue to be critically important.

As the global middle-class flourishes, expect to see more replacement of the traditional 40-hour work week model with the ongoing rise of contingent workers and freelancers. The report predicts that “Work Shifts from Full-Time to Free Agent Employment”. The same social trends noted in Part Two of this series will impact on economic trends in this particular regard. As a result, contingent workforce planning and management services will grow in relevance and continue to lead their customers through the transition from traditional to non-traditional sourcing and management processes. More than 80% of large corporations plan to significantly increase their use of flexible workforce resources according to Intuit.

That flexibility in workforce design and access to talent on demand is expected to drive “Small Businesses and Global Giants to Form a Barbell Economy”. That is, the economy will be dominated by the small, agile, niche producers of novel products and the large corporations who acquire the cream of the crop. With the diminished presence of mid-sized businesses resulting from this trend, workforce management will train focus on managing two disparate workforce channels – enterprise level resources and startup level resources.

For consultation on how to prepare your organization for the Future of Work, speak with a workforce specialist today and embrace the economic trends identified by the multiple sources cited in this article. Visit back soon for the fourth and final installment in this series covering the Intuit 2020 Report – Part Four – The Ubiquity of Technology.

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