Monday, August 13, 2012

GLOBALIZATION

Jobs dry up for travel 
agents and IT workers
By Alanah Eriksen New Zealand Herald Business
5:30 AM Monday Aug 13, 2012

The internet has diminished some industries significantly - including travel agents. Photo / Thinkstock
If you're a travel agent or an accountant, you could be facing "extinction" by 2017.
Car manufacturers, retail and IT workers may also need to start thinking about a new career path as consumers increasingly turn to the internet for services and employers outsource for cheaper labor.
The Balance Recruitment agency has compiled a list of the top five jobs they believe will disappear in the next five years.
Managing director Greg Pankhurst said overseas companies were becoming more trusted by local businesses.
"Many jobs will become obsolete due to technological advances, while others will simply move offshore to Asia," he said. "Offshoring is not a new phenomenon, but people are getting a lot better at it and higher-skilled jobs are starting to go offshore. It used to be the very basic roles.
"It is vital people understand these changes and attempt to reskill so they don't end up becoming superfluous."
Continues below  . . . 

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New Zealand has been benefiting over the past few years as Australian companies outsourced services to New Zealand because it was a 'significantly cheaper' place to do business. But 'a lot of the stigma' about outsourcing further afield had been broken, Mr Pankhurst said.

A computer programmer in India would earn about $8000 a year compared with between $70,000 and $75,000 in New Zealand, he said.
The internet had also diminished some industries significantly, Mr Pankhurst said. Initially, bookshops, travel agents, music and video stores were affected but now niche and high-end suppliers of goods such as sporting goods, computers and branded fashion items, were selling products online.
Economists were expecting New Zealanders to spend $3.2 billion on online purchases this year, with the figure jumping to $5.4 billion for 2016, he said.
Auckland Flight Centre travel agent Mike van Beekhuizen said he didn't fear for his job as people enjoyed the face-to-face experience of customer service.
"You're making holidays come true for families, people are saving for these big trips. You get an email from them when they come back or they come and visit you and they just tell you about their experiences," he said.
The jobs that will survive were those that required a human touch such as hospitality workers, tourism operators, tradesmen, logistics workers, aged and health care and government workers including politicians.

Peter’s Comment

It’s not all doom and gloom because as one door closes another opens.

A hundred years ago the world was bemoaning the loss of wooden-wheel makers for wagons so really nothing has changed, while everything has changed.

Industries and occupations are lost when more efficient industries and occupations take their place and efficiency ultimately puts money in everyone’s pockets. Granted there can be pain during transition but in the end progress means wealth for more people and that can be seen in the growing range of products and services available.

When the wooden wagon wheel disappeared there were few cars, aircraft or telephones. Radio, television, computers and music tapes and discs were all products yet to be launched. Launching those products was not just a simple matter of inventing them and selling millions. They would have been useless until people had the money to buy them.

Outsourcing is a dirty word to many but it has positive benefits. It helps reduce the cost of goods and services and bring them within the reach of more people.

India, with more poverty and unemployment than any other country in the world, benefits enormously from outsourcing and that is just part of the evolving economic globalization in which ultimately everyone wins.

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