Changing Nature of Work

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CHANGING NATURE OF WORK In the last 100 years there have been an enormous amount of changes in the working environment. At the turn of the last century a portion the population were unable to read or write This did not stop them from being employed as they were trained on the job and became skilled workers. In this day and age if people are illiterate they are virtually unemployable. The nature of work has changed in keeping with the change of our civilisation. In the 1980’s who would have thought of having personal computers or being able to log on the Internet. Our quality and standard of life has improved. It’s not that we work harder but we are paid more for the jobs we do. Which jobs have disappeared; In this technological age, computers have made many changes in our society. A number of jobs are now obsolete. Machines do some jobs people used to do, and in less time. Some jobs have disappeared altogether where milk and bread were delivered to the home, now we have supermarkets. These are a few jobs that have disappeared over the decades: a Lamplighter – used to climb a ladder to light the street lights before electricity; a Switchboard Operator - calls went through a switchboard in the early days of phones; Ice Delivery – before refrigerators people had ice chests to keep food cold, and it was delivered on a horse and cart to the home; an Elevator operator - manually operated the elevator, using levers and directed people onto the correct floor. Which are new? Computers are in almost every home and we can access information and communicate with people all over the world without leaving our homes. Why has this happened? Since the beginning of the industrial age our society has changed and we want our lives to be easier and we want more leisure time. What has influenced society to change? We are paid more money for the work we do. We have better and

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