China job woes… Video job applications… Start-ups in smart cities do better… Skills shortage worsens for IT firms… The world of 2015

China woes

New graduates are finding it tougher to get jobs in China, causing a serious problem for the economy, The Australian Financial Review reported today. The problems of a surplus workforce is compounded by a shortage of workers in certain occupations. And Shanghai, which has enjoyed 15 years of double digit growth, yesterday set its growth targets at 9% for 2007.

Video job applications

Job seekers looking for a way to stand out from the crowd have taken up the video camera — and online recruitment websites are following their lead.

Time reports that online jobs sites such as Jobster, Vault.com, 62ndview, HireVue and Resumevideo have all either started listing video resumes, or plan to in the near future. YouTube already has hundreds of resume videos spontaneously posted by jobseekers.

The phenomenon was sparked after a colourful video resume filmed by US college student Aleksey Vayner found its way onto YouTube. Although it didn’t get him a job, it did become one of YouTube’s more popular items, and in the process woke the world up to the possibilities of marrying online video and job hunting.

Start-ups in smart cities do better

The education level of local populations can have a direct impact on business success, reports Inc.com.

Start-ups that are based in cities and towns with low high-school dropout rates and a high percentage of residents with college educations have greater survival rates than those located in areas with less-educated local populations, according to a new study from the School of Public Policy at George Mason University.

Another factor that affected survival rates was the intensity of related businesses within a region. “If you’re an area where there are lots of firms in a certain industry, it’s going to be easy to start a business in that industry,” the study’s author said. “But it’s going much harder to survive.”

Skills shortage worsens for IT firms

 Recruiter Best International’s monthly IT Talent Index reveals that the increase in demand for IT contract positions in Australia has overtaken the increase in demand for permanent roles, reports ITWire.

The IT job market grew 10% in February, demand for contract positions was up 10% and demand for permanent roles was up 9.3%. Analyst programmers are most in demand, followed by architect roles and consulting.

What will make the world of 2015 very different to today

The world’s providers of energy and energy-intensive commodities face a decade of unprecedented change and uncertainty as a combination of six macroeconomic, social, and business trends reshapes the competitive landscape, writes The McKinsey Quarterly.

These trends include booming demand for energy and basic-materials resources, particularly in developing economies; the shift of supplies of oil, natural gas, and basic materials to ever more remote (and often geopolitically unstable) locations; heightened scrutiny of the environmental effects of the production and consumption of energy and materials; and increasingly large capital investments needed at a time of regulatory uncertainty.

McKinsey has identified the trends that will make the world of 2015 a very different place to do business from the world of today.

• Shifting centres of economic activity.
• Rising demand, rising environmental concerns.
• A changing consumer landscape.
• The battlefield for talent.
• Emerging industry structures.
• Business in the spotlight.