Jobs become scarce, unstable, and temporary in the increasingly precarious job market. As a result worker do all they can to obtain and keep a job. The precarity influences job types and positions, thus affecting one’s lifestyle. A job may require to live a way from family and friends, constantly travel, or maybe just work from home. Vicki Smith’s “Review Article on Enhancing Employability” argues that in the precariat market employees face the individual responsibility of their own employability, meaning individuals constantly work to improve their selves. Melissa Gregg’s Chapter on “Part-time Precarity Discount Labor and Contract Careers” gives overall themes pertaining to the necessity of unpaid labor, training, and networking, to increase
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Employability is simply the individual’s ability to possibly be employed. Vicki Smith builds upon this concept by explaining the work required to maintain this employability, including “identity work, training and networking, and laboring in unpaid and marginal paid positions” (1). Gregg uses personal stories to explain various experiences in the precariat regarding employability. These relate to Irene Hardill and Anne Green’s Remote Working, when telework is necessary to maintain one’s job. Telework defines mobile working or working away from the central office of the organization. Employees enhance their employability by agreeing to telework in order to complete a task or save money. Some jobs even require constant travel. The film Up in the Air, starring George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, depicts a man who constantly travels for his job which consists of firing people for other people. His lifestyle when Natalie, a young ambitious woman, pushes for Ryan’s job to be digitized making it a form of telework, where they can essentially fire someone from anywhere. Natalie is inexperienced and must undergo training in order to be successful in her current job for future advancements. Natalie gains experience but ultimately fails . Thus she resigns and uses her experiences to acquire a new …show more content…
The precariat can influence where you work and even your family relationships. Telework and telecommuting usually means working from home, which would mean the employee has the ability to spend more time with friends and family. However, precarity also leads to various commuter lifestyles and the need to travel for one’s job. Hardill and Green mentions, “the blurring of business travel, short term business assignments and residential mobility”, this is exactly what we see in Up in the Air. Ryan spends the majority of his time on planes and in hotels. He only stays in his apartment 88 days a year, making it hard to define which is really his home. The film also represents the precarity in the many interactions with the soon to be former employees. Organizations fire multiple people, who all describe the situation as unexpected. Many have nowhere else to go and no other skills, from working at the same organization for many years. However, this also demonstrates the former employee’s lack of employability, meaning they did not work to obtain other skills or training in order to increase their likely hood of finding another
Employability is simply the individual’s ability to possibly be employed. Vicki Smith builds upon this concept by explaining the work required to maintain this employability, including “identity work, training and networking, and laboring in unpaid and marginal paid positions” (1). Gregg uses personal stories to explain various experiences in the precariat regarding employability. These relate to Irene Hardill and Anne Green’s Remote Working, when telework is necessary to maintain one’s job. Telework defines mobile working or working away from the central office of the organization. Employees enhance their employability by agreeing to telework in order to complete a task or save money. Some jobs even require constant travel. The film Up in the Air, starring George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, depicts a man who constantly travels for his job which consists of firing people for other people. His lifestyle when Natalie, a young ambitious woman, pushes for Ryan’s job to be digitized making it a form of telework, where they can essentially fire someone from anywhere. Natalie is inexperienced and must undergo training in order to be successful in her current job for future advancements. Natalie gains experience but ultimately fails . Thus she resigns and uses her experiences to acquire a new …show more content…
The precariat can influence where you work and even your family relationships. Telework and telecommuting usually means working from home, which would mean the employee has the ability to spend more time with friends and family. However, precarity also leads to various commuter lifestyles and the need to travel for one’s job. Hardill and Green mentions, “the blurring of business travel, short term business assignments and residential mobility”, this is exactly what we see in Up in the Air. Ryan spends the majority of his time on planes and in hotels. He only stays in his apartment 88 days a year, making it hard to define which is really his home. The film also represents the precarity in the many interactions with the soon to be former employees. Organizations fire multiple people, who all describe the situation as unexpected. Many have nowhere else to go and no other skills, from working at the same organization for many years. However, this also demonstrates the former employee’s lack of employability, meaning they did not work to obtain other skills or training in order to increase their likely hood of finding another