A Whole New Area Of Opportunity Is Developing Around Internet Business But Does It Offer Extra Jobs Or Replace Others Currently In A More Conventional Setting

A entire new area of opportunity is opening up around internet business but does it give additional jobs or replace others in a more conventional setting? Reports continue to appear about the development in the Online Jobs market and how it will have a positive impact on the number of people out of work in the UK over the next couple of years. On the face of it this would seem to be right.

Companies are springing up at a great rate taking advantage of the large demand in online shopping from individual items for personal use such as gifts, household appliances, clothes and books to the business to business type trade where larger scale trading is conducted. We can also see the expansion of existing organizations who have realised the online opportunities and have increased their offering, moving into online sales and therefore widening their audience massively. Both of these scenarios will mean an swell in employee numbers whether they Work From Home or in the office or factory.

Certainly in the short term this will trim the jobless figures as existing roles continue and people are recruited into the new jobs created and developed by the company from this thrilling new source. On top of the sales processing or customer service jobs there will also be increases in back room roles such as human resources, finance departments and of course in manufacturing areas. As demand on each particular business increases due to their successful internet promotion virtually all areas of the business will need to grow. The company will also need to handle larger distribution, banking and accountancy requirements meaning that there will be increased demand on outside organizations servicing the growing business.

However at some point, presumably after the excitement brought on by the striking increase in sales has calmed, the business will need to reevaluate all of it’s elements. It may be that this takes a while to come about, however in the most astute companies they may already be anticipating drops in other sales areas. The company may at that point see that areas such as high street sales have been negatively affected by the move towards internet sales and it may be decided that it is no longer worth working in those areas.

So eventually we could see simply a shift in the sales arena, from the more conventional kinds such as high street shops and catalogue chains to the newer and more successful Internet Business. Jobs will be lost in the old sectors as high street shop profits fall and organizations see a much better return on investment from their e-commerce activities. The workforce in these shrinking markets will reduce and we could end up with a jobless statistic that is larger than the existing one.

Of course, it’s not at all certain that there will be an increase in joblessness as a result of these trends. History from the dawn of the industrial revolution teaches us that these kinds of changes make society as a whole richer over time. A percentage of the people losing their jobs will start up new micro businesses, and taking advantage of the changes which caused their owners to lose their jobs in the first place, enough of these businesses will develop into significant employers in their own right. Thereby soaking up those whose jobs disappeared at the start of the trend.