The Rise of "Gig Academy"
Like the title of this blog says, if you're in academia or any other sector for that matter, I'm sorry to say but don't get your hopes up if you think you'll land a cushy job where you'll work for the rest of your life and retire with a nice pension. That time period is long gone. According to Adriana Kezar, a professor of education at University of Southern California, she describes the current employment trend in higher education: “A cheap and deprofessionalized workforce, fissured workers through outsourcing, automation and uses of technology to reduce labor costs, offloading reproduction costs onto employees, an ethic of micro-entrepreneurship, and managerial control over labor supply and demand.” She continues to explain how, within the last two decades, there has been a seismic down shift in the number of tenure track positions that are available. In the past, the higher-ed faculty composed of 70% tenure-track faculty whereas today, the number...
