Economics, demographics, technology, and other factors are changing the composition and availability of jobs. Newer forms of freelance, contingent work, also known as gigs, are gradually eroding traditional jobs. A venue that affords employment opportunities for a growing number of gig workers has become known as the platform economy. Those engaged in the platform economy already represent 10.1% of the U.S. workforce. This article explores the factors that give rise to these new work structures and examines the new opportunities they offer for employment and income. The social and economic consequences of the growth of these new work structures, intended and unintended, for workers, consumers, employers, and the public are discussed. The article concludes with a synthesis model of human resource development (HRD) research and the implications of the growth of these new types of work for HRD theory and practice.
The growing preponderance of low-wage work in America challenges the dual mission of Human Resource Development Practitioners to foster individual and organizational learning and performance. In the prevailing discourse of the learning society, individual success and mobility are available to all who assume personal responsibility and agency in the labor market. A competing discourse posits that the emerging structure of work disadvantages a growing number of workers, leading to labor market segregation and significant economic disparity. The author argues that both agency and structure interact in low-wage labor markets to create and limit opportunity for workers. The aim of this article is to locate the learning challenges faced by low-wage workers and their employers and to explore what Human Resource Development Practitioners can do to mitigate the growth of low-wage work and its individual and social consequences.
In this final chapter, we identify and elaborate the connections throughout the volume. We explore the philosophical underpinnings of the original model and analyze how the different lenses in these chapters lead the authors to new understandings of informal and incidental learning that trouble some of the features of the original model. We examine how these different lenses impact informal and incidental theory, practice, and research.
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