Peak Performance

Technology has globalized the job market and ramped up competition.

Just a few decades ago, getting a job was a piece of cake. As long as you stood out from the few people in your geographical area who had also applied for the desired job, you had a good chance of landing it. But today, that’s clearly not the case.

At this point, the job market is akin to a full-blown world war. After all, technological innovations have made it possible to do a number of jobs from anywhere on the globe. As a result, the number of people vying for a limited number of jobs has increased, which has made the competition fiercer than ever.

To make matters even more difficult, an unprecedented number of people are committing themselves to breaking world records these days, a fact that makes standing out from the pack that much harder. For instance, in 1954, when the British athlete Sir Roger Bannister ran a mile in less than four minutes, lots of people thought his accomplishment represented the outer limits of human performance. But today, more than twenty Americans break that four-minute barrier annually.

And finally, computers, robots and other forms of artificial intelligence are putting the squeeze on the job market. Just take the e-commerce and cloud-computing company Amazon, which is making human employees redundant by using technology. Since the firm operates entirely online, there’s no need for cashiers or salespeople; Amazon doesn’t even need to pay rent on, or invest in, storefronts.

The rise of this online monolith has naturally resulted in the bankruptcy of some brick-and-mortar competitors, like the bookseller Borders, which previously employed over 35,000 people.

To take things to an even higher level, Amazon is now looking into using drones to deliver its products, which may eliminate the need for human workers altogether.

The point is, machines are getting smarter every day and coming for an ever-greater percentage of jobs.