ABSTRACT
The skills and qualifications of the workforce, the patterns of working, the technologies and systems in use, the design of places and spaces for work, and the rewards in retirement after work all of these things are under review at a time of unforeseen instability in global financial markets. The scale of the economic challenge to national wealth and prosperity posed by population ageing is unprecedented and exacerbated by corporate early-retirement policies, which have culled a whole generation of older workers, and there are no prior employment models on which to lean. Labour supply shortfalls in previous eras were answered by admitting wider social groups into the workforce, either women or people from outside the nation state. But more economic migrants must today show evidence of qualifications and training as governments calibrate immigration policy more tightly to the needs of the knowledge economy. The scale of the change we face demands we start finding the right design solutions right now.
