A Whole New Sector Of Opportunity Is Evolving Around Internet Business But Does It Provide Additional Jobs Or Replace Others Currently In A More Conventional Setting

Posted on November 10, 2009
Filed Under Online Business, Promotion and Marketing | Leave a Comment

A complete new area of opportunity is opening up around internet business but does it give additional jobs or replace others in a more customary setting? Reports continue to circulate about the development in the Online Jobs market and how it will have a positive impact on the number of unemployed in the UK over the next couple of years. On the surface of it this would seem to be true.

Companies are springing up at a great rate taking advantage of the large demand in online shopping from individual things for personal use such as gifts, household equipment, fashion and books to the business to business type trade where larger scale trading takes place. We can also see the expansion of existing organizations who have realised the online opportunities and have expanded their offering, moving into online sales and therefore widening their audience massively. Both of these situations will mean an swell in employee numbers whether they Work From Home or in the office or factory.

Certainly in the short term this will cut down the jobless figures as existing roles are maintained and people are recruited into the new jobs created and developed by the company from this exciting new source. On top of the sales processing or customer service jobs there will also be increases in back room roles such as personnel, finance departments and of course in manufacturing areas. As demand on each particular business increases due to their successful internet marketing virtually all areas of the firm will need to grow. The company will also need to handle larger distribution, banking and accountancy requirements meaning that there will be increased demand on outside organizations servicing the growing business.

However at some point, potentially after the euphoria brought on by the striking increase in sales has settled, the business will need to reevaluate all of it’s areas. It may be that this takes a while to come about, however in the most smart companies they may already be expecting drops in other sales areas. The company may at that point see that areas such as high street sales have been negatively affected by the move towards internet sales and it may be decided that it is no longer worth operating in those areas.

So ultimately we could see simply a shift in the sales arena, from the more conventional sorts such as high street shops and catalogue chains to the newer and more successful Internet Business. Jobs will go in the old sectors as high street shop profits drop off and organizations see a much better return on investment from their e-commerce activities. The workforce in these reducing markets will reduce and we could end up with a jobless figure that is larger than the current one.

Of course, it’s not at all sure that there will be a rise in job seekers as a result of these trends. History from the beginning of the industrial revolution tells us that these sorts of changes make society as a whole richer over time. A percentage of the workers losing their jobs will start up new micro businesses, and taking advantage of the changes which caused their owners to lose their jobs in the first place, enough of these businesses will expand into important employers in their own right. Thereby soaking up those whose jobs disappeared at the beginning of the trend.