The economic crisis. Where are the new jobs?

The new type of company: No bureaucracy

The revolution: Micro-multinationals

Entrepreneurship. The only game in town

Micro-multinationals drivers of large enterprises

A government policy framework

What governments should do

• Encourage new company start-ups,
• Accelerate movement towards a fully functioning digital economy and modern intellectual property regimes. … (creating) an integrated digital economy needs to be accompanied by a review of the intellectual property regime (IPR). As is, IPR is now often the legal shield behind which current rights holders –hide to prevent others from developing new products and services
• Recognize the importance of internationalization and immigration.
• Encourage companies to become intensive users of technology.
• Develop and encourage the range and quality of services on offer to local businesses and individuals.
• Create the right incentive structures for freelancers and the self-employed. For example, unemployment benefits and health insurance coverage should neither be tied to an employer nor should they be denied to freelancers or the self-employed (US and EU)
• Prioritize education and skills development to ensure a large proportion of the unemployed population has a pathway to succeed in the new economy.
• Develop data and statistics that are commensurate with a new economic age.

Finally

"We're dealing with an outdated employment system---it was built for a workforce from the 1930s, and it no longer works for us today," says Sara Horowitz, founder of the Freelancers Union, a non-profit organization that represents America's independent workforce. Ms. Horowitz is right.

About The Lisbon Council

(From its website: http://www.lisboncouncil.net/about-us/vision.html)

A Think Tank for the 21st Century

Society is facing unprecedented challenges. Large parts of Europe, North America and Asia are struggling to exit the worst economic crisis in 60 years, to cope with unprecedented levels of debt, to curb the excess of climate change and to prepare for a demographic time bomb that will change the shape and balance of the world as we know it. At the same time, developing economies around the globe, particularly the BRIC countries, are charging ahead with high growth rates and dramatically improved innovation capabilities, rapidly catching up with their G-7 counterparts.

While the verdict is out as to what this new, re-jigged world will ultimately look like, one thing is for certain: modern life---and the arrival of a globally integrated, technology-powered network economy---offers unprecedented opportunity for individuals, organisations, regions and countries to drive forward innovation and positive change.

Against this backdrop, The Lisbon Council for Economic Competitiveness and Social Renewal is committed to defining and articulating mature, holistic and evidence-based strategies for managing current and future challenges. Above all, we seek strategies based on inclusion, opportunity and sustainability that will make the benefits of modernisation and technological advancement available to all our citizens.

We stand for innovation---the willingness to embrace the future as a challenge we can meet, and the determination to start that effort today. We want our unique platform to serve as an incubator for novel ideas that offer new approaches to key challenges.

At the centre of our activities are solution-oriented seminars, thought-provoking publications, media appearances and public advocacy. These days, there are more than 5,000 people in our global network of top innovators and entrepreneurs, leading-edge thinkers and researchers, public figures and civil servants, business strategists and corporate leaders, third-sector pioneers and philanthropists---all of them lending their energy, brain power and dedication to use innovation as a force for good and apply it to solve the great economic and social challenges of our times. Founded in 2003, the Lisbon Council is incorporated in Belgium as an independent, non-profit and non-partisan association.

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Submitted Comments

On 3 January, Nicholas commented:

Wow!!! Both you and the article writers have the facts staring you in the face but choose to ignore the facts and beat up the wonders of organisations that are able to undercut local companies by outsourcing to the lowest bidder.

Why ramble on about the wonders of being self employed when the facts are staring you in the face??? The facts are that it is a health and financial hazard being self employed, and I did not even have to search for other articles to prove my point. It is there in the article itself; three times as many self employed people are poor when compared to "employees"!!! ... and what comment do you and the article writers have to say about that? Nada!!! Why not???????

Do you really believe that we would all be better off if everyone suddenly became independent "entrepreneurs", freely taking control of their working lives but at the same time became classified as poor?? You must be crazy to think that. To use the argument that it is just a matter of changing government policy and everything else will be hunky dory is insane, no government policy will provide social support or worker rights to workers, they never have, worker rights and standards of living have been hard fought for over generations. What we are witnessing with "globalisation" is a whittling away at these rights and equalities. The mega rich, politicians and policy gurus are getting ever more wealthy whilst the little bloke is getting screwed ever more harder. The individualisation of the workforce is simply another tool being implemented by further disempowered the individual and screw the last drop of sweat and blood our of him before he is thrown to a pauper's grave.

Might I suggest that you pull your head out of the sand, look at a few more stats like those below (especially from India) and then try to stop believing your own cods wallop. Being self employed is no answer to the battler's problems, in fact it is three times more likely to lead to poverty and ill health, whilst at the same time making the CEO's of the multinational's even more wealthy than ever. I cannot help but wonder whether it is those same mega wealthy CEO's that are paying organisations like your to beat your freedom drum??

From the article:

"Few people are more likely to fall through the cracks of the existing social protection systems than the self-employed and freelancers. On both sides of the Atlantic, people in these employment segments have a higher risk of poverty and are more likely to lack basic social protection, such as maternity leave, despite the fact that they put in significantly more working time than others. In addition, self-employed and freelancers are imminently more exposed to economic upheavals, meaning that they are often the first to feel firsthand the effects of a downturn. What does this mean concretely? In Europe, for example, 18% of self-employed people are classified as poor versus 6% of employees, even though the self-employed tend to work on average almost 44.4 hours a week (and 49.7 hours for employers), compared to 36.8 hours a week for employees. In the United States, on the other hand, in this latest recession 81% of freelancers were at some point either unemployed or underemployed (without qualifying for unemployment benefits), 40% did not get paid by deadbeat clients and 39% cut back or eliminated their health coverage."

To which Ken Phillips replied:

Nicholas,

Thanks for the comment. We'll post it.

I know where you're coming from but we'll have to agree to disagree. The ultimate liberation of the worker is in self-employment, but fair contracts must prevail. Even Cuba is going down this path.

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