What a week!

Lightning strike. Without computers, the internet and phones, we were crippled. So, no alternative but to call in the “techo cavalry” and put in huge hours and effort into restoring the infrastructure of the business. After almost fours days we’re fully recovered. Friday night: I fall into bed for 13 straight hours! (Hence not a lot of pondering this week.)

A salutary reminder of the importance of digital technology to the performance of work in our small business.

Like many these days, our business employs knowledge workers. They have finely tuned skills and experience. They work with large amounts of data and all sorts of electronically filed records and information. Efficiency depends on all this being searchable and always “at their fingertips”.

Why do we depend so much on technology? Because it allows us to deliver better customer service with less people and less cost. It’s that simple.

Will continuing advances in technology allow us to keep going in that direction? Yes.

Relatively, technology is cheap and skilled employees are expensive. So not only will we keep going, we must, to remain competitive in our business. We need to create, collect, organise, store and retrieve ever larger amounts of information and data. And it’s not on paper: it’s digital, held in an almost in-comprehensively small space.

But there is absolutely nothing special about us in this context. Huge numbers of small service and professional businesses are like us.

Now magnify that principle to large employers of knowledge workers: Government departments like the Tax Office, Centrelink; banks; insurance companies; big law and accounting firms; airlines. Without exception, these businesses and organisations will do more and employ less.

The implication for the future of work in this field is obvious. Less jobs available for more people means downward pressure on wages and salaries and more unemployment for “white collar” workers.

So the transformation of work in this large sector of the workforce joins the similar changes to work in agriculture, manufacturing, construction, mining and retail created by smarter machines, computers, robots and the internet.

Hmmm. We can’t all be tourist guides and coffee shop operators …

Have you heard any politician or government official addressing this big systemic issue? I haven’t. Rather, they tend to blather on about the need for improved productivity to make the economy more efficient. I wonder do they realise what the implications are of what they are saying when it comes to the future of work for a growing population? I doubt it.

But over the long haul this is a major problem for society. Less productively employed people struggling to support more unemployed people. Are we ready?