News from the attic: Global Work Force 2000

This month’s archive moment is taken from Harvard Business Review March - April 1991, in which William B Johnston’s article “Global Work Force 2000: The new world labor market” appeared. How interesting to reflect on his conclusions some ten years beyond his horizon. Summarising the article, he noted, “The quality of [the workforce] is rising as developing countries like Brazil and China generate growing proportions of the world’s college graduates.” In the article, he highlights that:

• women constitute an increasing proportion of the workforce around the world
• the world’s work force and population are ageing
• developed countries send more of their young to school but...
• developing countries supply a growing share of the world’s educated people
• many developing countries send more than two-thirds of teenagers to school
• much of the world’s scientific brainpower comes from developing countries

Johnston concludes that all this will lead to an increasing need to free up labour markets so that talent can move more freely between countries. For this to happen, there needs to be common standards. “For a global corporation, the notion of a single set of workplace standards will eventually become as irresistible as the idea of a single language for conducting business.”

Johnston got it pretty well right – and the trends continue.

Calvert Markham