Las transformaciones globales del mundo del trabajo y su incidencia en américa latina. Elementos para analizar la situación de los jóvenes en Colombia

• Main Authors: John Fernando Macías Prada, Paula Andrea Suescún Álvarez
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Konrad Lorenz Fundación Universitaria 2012-10-01
• Series: Suma de Negocios
• Subjects: Unemployment; Discourse; Employment; Labour Flexibility; Youth; Globalization; Working World; Marginality; Neoliberal; Labor
• Online Access: http://publicaciones.konradlorenz.edu.co/index.php/SumaDeNegocios/article/view/1098
• ISSN: 2215-910X; 2215-910X

In contemporary Colombian society, as in many countries of the world, young people must deal with a conception of the working world that has changed radically. Instead of a stable routine, a predictable career, loyalty to a company that in return offers a stable job, young people now face a flexible labor market, they face structurally dynamic firms with unpredictable adjustments periods, they face mobility requirements. Currently they live in a transitory workplace marked by change, innovation and short-term projects, which characterizes a trend of Western society in which “we are what we do” and work has always been considered the key character and identity formation factor. This new labor scenario, albeit encouraging a more dynamic economy, profoundly affects individuals, transforming notions of permanence, trust in others, integrity and commitment that made even the most repetitive work a key organizing element in the lives of individuals and, therefore, in the case of young people, affects their integration into society and labor markets. Such problems, of which unemployment in young people in marginal condition in Colombia is just only one case, cannot be reduced to mere de-structuring effects of economic globalization. Arguably, the most conspicuous problems come, that’s true, from globalization’s inherent shocks; Nevertheless a hypothesis arises stating that there´s another condition, more covert, the destructive effects of modern individualism, which refers back to the idea of Corrosion of Character… Arguably, young people in our society face new forms of inequality, which there’s a simultaneous failure in the institutions that run the social link and solidarity (welfare state crisis), the forms of the relationship between economy and society (labor crisis) and individual and collective identities (crisis of the subject). By failing to appreciate the importance of these shocks, the traditional political forces are more and more isolated from society.