Pages

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Internet, a curse or a blessing for job opportunities?

The newly born infants of the 21st century, get their first exposure to the public through the Internet. Thanks to the social media networks and the abundance of cellular data connection in most parts of the world. Davidow (2015) argues that Internet has caused a loss in the number of jobs available in the market; as most firms are emerging to a more automated business conduct, where humans are displaced by robots. He claims that big companies such as Google are successful and profitable due to the drop of expenses caused by running firms with few workers. Davidow (2015) also added, online retailing has lead to a drop in the number of jobs offered in retail shops, as retailers are using machines instead of labor in their warehouses.
               In criticism to Davidow's explanation to the success reason of Google like companies, it is not due to the small number of employees' such firms are prospering, but it is about the productivity and efficiency of the employees' in such firms that leads to the success and revenue growth of these companies. Of course the employees' productivity is not the only factor of success, however the quality of employees' plays a very crucial role in the performance of a corporation (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart and Wright 2011).
        According to Thau (2013) 94% of retail sales are achieved from physical retail stores in the USA. This indicates that many customers in the states still prefer not to shop online and rather target brick-and-mortar merchants. As a result of the physical retailer shops demand, famous retail chains would expand further by opening more branches of their stores, and thus many job opportunities are retained in the retailing industry. Given the aforementioned justification, it is evident that Davidow's claim about jobs drop caused by online retailers is incomprehensive. In general the article would have been more valid if it contained more data about the claims made by the author. Moreover the author's over generalization of Internet impact to job opportunities is questionable.

References
Davidow, W. H. (2015) Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from                  https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-internet-has-been-a-colossal-economic-disappointment
Noe, R. A. , Hollenbeck, J. R. , Gerhart, B. , & Wright, P. M. , (2011). Fundamentals of human resource management. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Thau, B. (2013). Getting physical online retailer move offline. Chain Store Age, 89(3), 12-14,16. Retrieved April 13, 2015, from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1400452493?accountid=27575

No comments:

Post a Comment