Work and employment in the liquid modernity era

This post-industrial Era is characterized by a higher state of diversity and an acceleration of historical change. Globalization and financial logic reduced everything to a mere service, and concepts like work and employment are no exception. For the most part of the 20th century our understanding of a regular job was connected to long-term open-ended contracts in one organization, while the use of contingent work was a mere exception, an almost inexistent reality. Today we are facing a completely new reality: first there is less employment security, and the concept of a life-long career is no longer a certainty; and secondly, the latest economic, technical and social developments have created a situation where temporary employees are considered a regular component of organization’s labor sourcing mix. The evolution of the employed and unemployed population and also the contractual ties and qualifications of the employed population are some of the indicators that allow us to monitor the consequences of this employment reconfiguration. For now, the overall and long-term impacts of this turbulence remains to be explained, however in the present time, it is possible to see how the labor market is changing, specially if we look at particular situations. Therefore, in this chapter, and after focusing on all the changes operating inside the work and employment concepts, we will explore some indicators of the employment market of a specific country - Portugal (2005-2013), to exemplify with numbers and figures what is the present situation of this market.