Outsourcing and employment trends: An exploratory discourse

Abstract

Outsourcing can be said to be the response of organisations to the costs and disadvantages of the traditional work arrangement. In recent times, as organisations seek strategies to enable them focus on their core businesses in the bid to gain competitive advantage as well as reduce transaction costs to the barest minimum, they use outsourced workers as flexible buffer to absorb changes in employment trends. Contemporary employment trends involve work flexibility (which enables workers to choose where, when and how they want to work) and are facilitated by advancement in technology. This paper seeks to find out the effects of outsourcing on employment trends and vice versa. The study is a library research involving analytical discussion of secondary data. The study observes that a major strategy used by organisations to mitigate the negative effects resulting from new trends in employment and application of technology includes work flexibility and outsourcing policy of organizations. With the aid of technology, this makes it possible for organisations to beat the employee work skill deterioration and specific shortage through outsourcing while still saving cost and performing optimally. It is recommended that there is need to put policiesin place to cushion the negative effects of losses of firm-specific human capital provisions resulting from work flexibility and outsourcing.

Keywords:

Employment trends, outsourcing, transaction cost theory, work flexibility