Careers are over

Scott Herrick at Cube Rules says careers are over. Herrick is writing about working in the USA, but his comments apply equally to New Zealand where people tend to stick with their jobs longer mainly because they have fewer alternative employers.

He says:

The days of our fathers and grandfathers — where grey flannel suits reigned and there was lifetime employment at a company — are over. I just can’t believe people still think that type of employment still exists.

Have we seen the layoffs? The outsourcing? The downsizing? The increased productivity?

 How could any person reasonably conclude that a career could come from all that?

The answer is: it can’t.

There are no more careers. There is no job security. There is only employment security.

And that's the key point. You can't expect to have a traditional style career any more, but you can expect to have a reasonable number of employment opportunities so long as you have saleable skills and stay up to date.