A Whole New Sector Of Opportunity Is Developing Around Internet Business But Does It Give Additional Jobs Or Replace Others Currently In A More Conventional Setting

Nov

stored in: Online Business, Promotion and Marketing

A whole new area of opportunity is opening up around internet business but does it provide additional jobs or replace others in a more conventional setting? Reports continue to circulate about the increase in the Online Jobs market and how it will have a positive impact on the number of unemployed in the UK over the next couple of years. On the face of it this would seem to be correct.

Firms are appearing at a great rate taking advantage of the massive demand in online shopping from individual objects for personal use such as presents, household appliances, clothing and books to the business to business type trade where larger scale trading takes place. We can also see the expansion of existing firms who have realised the online opportunities and have expanded their offering, moving into online sales and therefore widening their audience enormously. Both of these situations will mean an rise in employee numbers whether they Work From Home or in the office or factory.

Certainly in the short term this will reduce the jobless figures as existing roles continue and people are recruited into the new roles created and developed by the firm from this exciting new source. On top of the sales processing or customer service jobs there will also be increases in administration roles such as personnel, finance departments and of course in manufacturing areas. As demand on each particular organisation increases due to their successful internet promotion virtually all areas of the firm will need to expand. The company will also need to deal with larger distribution, banking and accountancy requirements meaning that there will be increased demand on peripheral organizations servicing the growing organisation.

However at some point, presumably after the euphoria brought on by the remarkable increase in sales has calmed, the business will need to reevaluate all of it’s areas. It may be that this takes a while to occur, however in the most wise companies they may already be expecting reductions in other sales areas. The firm may at that point see that areas such as high street sales have been negatively affected by the move towards internet marketing and it may be decided that it is no longer worth operating in those areas.

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

Of course, it’s not at all sure that there will be a rise in job seekers as a result of these trends. History from the dawn of the industrial revolution shows us that these types of changes make society as a whole richer over time. A proportion 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 companies will expand into significant employers in their own right. Thereby offrering work to those whose jobs were lost at the start of the trend.