How will employment be measured?

Many people now believe those countries who have felt the most recent global economic crisis and subsequent recession have now reached the bottom and are now on the road to recovery, however long that proves to be. As with previous recessions, we have seen employment statistics fall and consequently unemployment figures rise. Previous recessions took more toll on manufacturing and manual workers, such as mineworkers and print workers; the most recent has affected more office and knowledge workers. Could this recession be the last in which we can sensibly use the traditional employment figures approaches, especially for this latter group of workers?

In the future, many more highly skilled people will be employees of more than one company at a time. Both organisations and individuals will expect flexibility in employment conditions to ensure efficiency. Technology will make it simple for people to manage their time and contributions to each. Time-shared employees will make their skills available to more organisations at a time. So when the next recession comes the measure of employment should probably account for these multiple employments.