Contemporary Workplace Change in the United States In order to earn a living, an individual has to work. People all around the world are working in different jobs just to make a living. Their jobs vary as opposed to type, pay, environment, and many other factors. However, over the years these factors have been changing due to the economy. According to Sweet and Meiksins in Changing Contours of Work, the old economy represents the various ways of assigning and structuring work that developed in the wake of the Industrial Revolution through the mid-20th century. Systems that were built around mass production, gender divisions of labor, unionized labor, and a variety of other enduring workplace practices were included in that economy. The United States was a major, and dominating force in the old economy. On the other hand, the idea of the new economy is questioning the nature of work whether it has changed, or not, and to what degree these changes are affecting lives on and off the job. There have been new jobs, new workers, and new work designs that are changing some of the ways of performing work, by whom, and the returns received. However, there are still some features of the old economy that tend to be permanent and dominated in the new economy from the old one. An example of that as mentioned in the book “Changing Contours of Work” would be old business that moved from the developed world to emerging economies; the job type did not change, but the people performing these jobs have changed. However, the workplace of today has been different than what it used to be 50 years ago.
When analyzing the type of products, services, and jobs that used to be in the old economy to the new economy, there are some changes that took place. As discussed in class, the type of jobs has changed over the last fifty years such as factory jobs that were available for low skilled