Tom Friedman says not to worry:

From his Sunday op-ed:

... world is now a challenge to white-collar workers. They have to compete with a bigger pool of cheap geniuses ...

It is also both a huge challenge and opportunity. It has never been harder to find a job and never been easier — for those prepared for this world — to invent a job or find a customer. ...

What is out and what is in anymore?”

Matt Barrie, is the founder of freelancer.com, which today lists 2.8 million freelancers offering every service you can imagine. “The whole world is connecting up now at an incredibly rapid pace,” says Barrie, and many of these people are coming to freelancer.com to offer their talents. Barrie says he describes this rising global army of freelancers the way he describes his own team: “They all have Ph.D.’s. They are poor, hungry and driven: P.H.D.”

Barrie offered me a few examples on his site right now: Someone is looking for a designer to design “a fully functioning dune buggy.” Forty people are now bidding on the job at an average price of $268.

There's your glorious future, according to Tom Friedman. Global non-pooled labor bidding against itself for tiny wages and no healthcare (at least in the U.S.) or retirement security.


posted by Quiddity at 10/02/2011 07:14:00 PM