The prevalence of telecommuting by reducing fixed employment costs makes it easier for individuals to work on flexible schedules, work part-time jobs, share work, or perform two or more tasks simultaneously. Because changing employers does not necessarily require a change of place of residence, working from home should increase job mobility and accelerate career advancement. This increased flexibility can also reduce job stress and increase job satisfaction. Because occupational stress is a major driver of health, there may be additional benefits in the form of reduced health care costs and mortality. On the other hand, it could be argued that technology can speed up work and increase workers’ stress levels and time pressures by expanding the number of different tasks expected of workers and the array of skills required to perform these tasks.
A more difficult question to answer concerns the impact computers and communications can have on employment. The ability of computers and communications to perform routine tasks like bookkeeping faster than humans leads to concerns that people will be replaced by computers and communications. The response to this argument is that even if computers and telecommunications lay off some workers, other jobs will be created, especially for computer professionals, and an increase in output will increase overall employment. Computers and communications are more likely to lead to changes in the types of workers needed for other jobs than to changes in overall employment.
Many industries are affected by e-commerce. Because e-commerce is a way of supplying and delivering goods and services, the distribution sector is directly affected. Other industries that are indirectly affected are information and communication technology (infrastructure that enables e-commerce), content-related industries (entertainment, software), and transaction-related industries (finance, advertising, travel, transportation). E-commerce can also create new markets or expand market reach beyond traditional boundaries. Expanding the market will have a positive impact on jobs. Another important issue relates to the interconnection between activities impacted by e-commerce. Spending on e-commerce-related intermediate goods and services will create jobs indirectly based on the volume and impact of e-commerce on price, cost and productivity. The convergence of media, communications and computing technologies is creating a new integrated supply chain for the production and delivery of multimedia and information content. Most of the employment is related to e-commerce, mainly in the content industry and telecommunication infrastructure such as the Internet.
Jobs are either created or destroyed by technology, trade, and organizational change. These courses are also the basis for changing the technological makeup of employment. In addition to net employment increases or losses due to these factors, it is clear that workers with different skill levels will be affected differently. E-commerce is certainly driving the demand for IT professionals, but the combination of IT expertise and strong business application skills must create a demand for a flexible, multi-skilled workforce. There is a growing demand for increased integration of Internet front-end applications with enterprise operations, applications and back-end databases. Many of the IT skills requirements for Internet support can be met by low-paid IT workers who can handle the organizational services required for basic web page programming. However, wide area networks, competing websites, and complex network applications require far more skills than platform-specific IT tasks. Because the skills required for e-commerce are scarce and in high demand, e-commerce could accelerate the trend in technological advancement in many countries by requiring highly-skilled computer scientists to replace low-skilled information workers, cashiers and market salespeople.
Education
Advances in information technology will affect teaching skills by complementing rather than eliminating traditional classroom instruction. In fact, effective instructors serve a variety of roles. In one role, the instructor is responsible for providing services to students who may be considered customers. However, a good instructor has another role in supervising the student, motivating, encouraging, evaluating, and developing the student. On any subject, there will always be a small number of students with the background, motivation, and self-discipline needed to learn from a self-paced workbook or computer-aided training. However, for the majority of students, the presence of an actual instructor will be far more effective than a computer-aided instructor in promoting positive educational outcomes. The greatest potential of new information technologies lies in improving the productivity of time spent outside the classroom. Providing solutions to problem sets and assigned reading material on the Internet is a great convenience. E-mail greatly simplifies communication between students and faculty, and students who can participate in group projects. Advances in information technology will affect teaching skills by complementing rather than eliminating traditional classroom instruction. In fact, effective instructors serve a variety of roles. In one role, the instructor is responsible for providing services to students who may be considered customers. However, a good instructor has another role in supervising the student, motivating, encouraging, evaluating, and developing the student. On any subject, there will always be a small number of students with the background, motivation, and self-discipline needed to learn from a self-paced workbook or computer-aided training. However, for the majority of students, the presence of an actual instructor will be far more effective than a computer-aided instructor in promoting positive educational outcomes. The greatest potential of new information technologies lies in improving the productivity of time spent outside the classroom. Providing solutions to problem sets and assigned reading material on the Internet is a great convenience. E-mail greatly simplifies communication between students and faculty, and students who can participate in group projects.
