A Microsoft executive just revealed why no one might want a career at Microsoft in the near future.
When tech companies start telling the truth, something happens. If they need to bare their souls, let out despair, and let out cries of anguish, you really need to worry about the dangerous state of the world. That's the state of the dire, desperate predictions emerging from Microsoft.
No, Microsoft isn't worried that the Surface will never become the dominant computer, laptop, tablet , or whatever it's supposed to be in the world. Microsoft is worried that it won't have enough people to get it there.
As Microsoft President Brad Smith told Reuters , the fear is that Microsoft may have to pay a lot of money to employees.
More specifically, Smith worries that the number of people who want jobs is shrinking. This means companies have to buckle down and try to recruit and retain.
One of the best ways to do this is to pay employees a lot of money. Maybe not the best solution, of course. Companies prefer to pay employees the least amount possible for maximum levels of production.
But if more employees than ever can choose where they work — and for how long — the problem could become big.
Smith explained that the number of young people entering the working population — and expanding it — is gradually becoming smaller.
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"This explains part of why you can have low growth and a labor shortage at the same time in a company the size of Microsoft. There just aren't as many people entering the workforce," he said.
There are many reasons why modern adults have decided to have fewer children. Some may have to do with the fact that corporations have used their power to make huge profits for too long, at the expense of providing a fairly decent quality of life.
Many more families were forced to have two working members. Governments also didn't exactly encourage child production. If you're not even offered paid maternity leave, why should you have the three children that companies like Microsoft need in order to keep their labor costs down?
Nobody will want a career at any company — not even Microsoft. As Smith himself admits, companies will probably have to pay employees more and more. Competition for skilled personnel will be increasingly fierce.
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As for employees, why would they want a career at any company like Microsoft when they can earn big bucks in a short period of time and take vacations for months or even years? Even more exciting for them is the fact that if they can choose whatever kind of jobs they want at whatever kind of company they want, they can finally feel productive — and maybe even happy — without feeling like they're being watched.
This all sounds a bit like LIV Golf. If you're not familiar with this disturbing phenomenon, it's a new golf tour that pays golfers just to show up, offers them bigger prize money, makes tournaments smaller, and caters to their need for more free time.
LIV Golf is funded by the dubious source of the Saudi Arabian. But its principles, however perverse, may apply to the corporate job market for decades to come.
Why take risks? Why work for bosses you don't like? Why spend your whole life working when you can do other things without worry? Why not get paid, just to show up at the company for, say, a year or two?
Of course, that's why so many people are investing so much in robots. Robots don't want vacations, kids, and big pay raises. At least, not yet.
Source: zdnet.com
