80、90后劳动力去哪了？

    入门级人才的就业前景究竟是好是坏？各种相互矛盾、让人喜忧参半的市场信号正在冲击着2014届毕业生及其父母紧张不安的神经，这一点毋庸置疑。

    一方面，就业市场似乎正在改善：全美大学与雇主协会(NACE)报告说，企业界今年计划招募的应届毕业生数量较去年增加8.6%，薪资水平也略有增长，平均年薪为45,473美元，较2013年将上涨1.2%。

    与此同时，更令人担忧的研究显示，拜经济衰退的余波所赐，许多美国大学毕业生在就业市场屡屡碰壁，以至于失去了求职的勇气。大约有十分之一的毕业生已经彻底告别劳动力市场。这些二十来岁的年轻人现在既不找工作，也没有继续留校深造。这个严峻的观点依据的是美国劳工统计局(Bureau of Labor Statistics)的数据。这些数据显示，20至24岁年轻人的劳动参与率经济衰退前将将超过78%，如今下降到了70%左右。

    如果数据真实，它足以引发恐慌。但果真如此吗？目前有很大一部分劳动力是由自由职业者和合同工组成。根据美国审计署（General Accounting Office)估计，这类劳动力涵盖所有年龄段，大约有4,200万。美国劳工部预测称，这个群体在未来5年将增至6,500万人。但一般情况下，联邦就业数据要么完全忽略这群影子劳动力大军，要么错误地把他们归类为失业组别，因为他们没有传统的全职工作。

    大量的合同工都是20多岁或30岁出头的年轻人。这当然是一个线索，我们可以据此追踪那些被认为已经退出劳动力市场的千禧一代。但更微妙之处在于，对于那些正在为全职管理层工作寻找入门级熟练工的雇主来说，它也是一个挑战。现在，招募20多岁的年轻人不仅仅意味着与其他传统雇主竞争。它也意味着对抗深受许多千禧一代推崇的更加灵活有趣的工作方式。

    我们不妨以莱博智科技公司(Lionbridge Technologies)为例。这家总部位于马萨诸塞州沃尔瑟姆的公司的工作是在自由职业的工程师、翻译和其他技术合同工与戴尔(Dell)、辉瑞制药(Pfizer),微软(Microsoft)和通用汽车(General Motors)这类需要人手从事专业化短期项目的大客户之间建立联系。在10万名与莱博智科技签约的合同工中，有超过一半(53%)是千禧一代，其中九成以上拥有学士或硕士学位。

    莱博智科技CEO罗里•考恩透露称，公司旗下的大多数自由职业者，特别是工程师和其他技术工人，每周工作30或40个小时，但他们经常为多个雇主承担项目。他认为，这种工作方式的挑战和多样性对20多岁的年轻人很有吸引力。也许是因为目睹过父母接二连三失去饭碗的经历，这些年轻人往往难以接受在一家公司从事全职工作的提议。

    “最大的吸引力似乎是流动性，”考恩指出。“这代人已经习惯了随时随地使用笔记本电脑完成一切事情，那么为什么不把工作也放在笔记本电脑上呢？”一位携带笔记本电脑的合同工，“可以花费半年时间在科罗拉多州滑雪，”而不用担心传统雇主给休假日设置的种种限制。他补充说：“所有任务都是以项目为基础，只要你在截止日期前完成工作，你可以设置自己的时间表。”

    当然，莱博智科技并不是唯一一家为自由职业者和雇主的短期工作牵线搭桥的公司。比如，外包服务商Elance.com表示，谷歌(Google)和ESPN体育频道等大客户时常挖掘其网站巨大的自由职业者人才库。Freelance.com声称，它的数据库储备了超过200万名合同工。

    此外，考恩指出，云计算的出现使得这些服务比过去更有效率，以至于“工作的性质正在发生变化，”他说。“比起父母那一代，20多岁的年轻人希望从事更有灵活性的工作。作为‘共享经济’的一个自然延伸，他们也希望在同一时间使用自己的技能为多个雇主服务。”

    如果官方就业数据开始把这个国家的自由职业者和合同工考虑在内，许多（如果不是大多数）被认为已经退出劳动力市场的千禧一代很有可能就会奇迹般地重新出现在统计数据之中。与此同时，那些试图招募稀缺的工程和技术人才的公司将面临一个问题：你能否为每一份工作注入足够的灵活性和多样性，从而让它变得比自由职业更加诱人？（财富中文网）

    译者：叶寒

    No question about it, the graduating class of 2014 -- and their nervous parents -- are getting bombarded with mixed signals about the market for entry-level talent.

    On the one hand, hiring seems to be picking up: The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) reports that companies plan to bring on 8.6% more new grads than last year, and at slightly higher salaries, averaging $45,473 (up 1.2% from 2013).

    At the same time, though, more worrisome studies say that, in the aftermath of the recession, about 1 in 10 American college graduates in their twenties have become so discouraged trying to find work that they've left the workforce altogether, and are neither job hunting nor in school. That grim view is based on Bureau of Labor Statistics figures showing labor force participation among 20-to-24-year-olds at about 70%, down from just over 78% before the downturn.

    That would be cause for alarm, if it were true. But is it? A big chunk of the workforce these days is made up of freelancers and contract workers, estimated by the General Accounting Office to number about 42 million people of all ages. The U.S. Department of Labor projects that will grow to 65 million in the next five years. Yet federal employment statistics usually either overlook this shadow army of workers completely or mistakenly classify them as unemployed because they don't hold traditional full-time jobs.

    Plenty of contract workers are in their 20s or early 30s. That's a clue as to the whereabouts of many of the Millennials thought to have dropped out of the workforce, of course. But it's also, more subtly, a challenge to employers looking for skilled entry-level workers for full-time management-track jobs. Now, recruiting twenty-somethings doesn't just mean competing with other traditional employers. It also means competing against what many Millennials see as a more flexible, more interesting way to work.

    Consider, for example, Lionbridge Technologies. The firm, headquartered in Waltham, Mass., connects freelance engineers, translators, and other skilled contractors with big clients like Dell, Pfizer (PFE), Microsoft (MSFT), and General Motors (GM) who need to staff specialized, short-term projects. More than half (53%) of Lionbridge's 100,000 contractors are Millennials. Over 90% of them hold bachelor's or master's degrees.

    Most of Lionbridge's freelancers, especially its engineers and other tech workers, work 30 or 40 hours a week, but often do tasks for several employers at once, says CEO Rory Cowan. He thinks the challenge and variety appeal to people in their twenties who, perhaps having seen their parents laid off two or three times, tend to balk at the idea of a full-time job at one company.

    "The biggest attraction seems to be mobility," Cowan notes. "This generation is used to doing everything on laptops from anywhere, so why not work on a laptop too?" A laptop-toting contract worker, he adds, "can spend half the year in Colorado skiing" without worrying about the limits traditional employers put on vacation days: "All the assignments are project-based, so as long as you meet your deadlines, you can make your own schedule."

    Of course, Lionbridge isn't the only company matching up freelancers with employers for short-term gigs. Elance.com, for one, says big outfits like Google (GOOG) and ESPN regularly tap its huge pool of freelancers, and Freelance.com claims over 2 million contractors in its database.

    Moreover, Cowan points out that the advent of cloud computing has made these services even more efficient than in the past, so that "the nature of work is changing," he says. "People in their twenties expect more flexibility than their parents' generation did. They also see using their skills with more than one employer at a time as a natural extension of the 'sharing economy.'"

    If the official employment figures ever start taking the nation's freelancers and contract workers into account, it's likely that many (if not most) of the Millennials who have supposedly dropped out of the workforce will magically reappear in the statistics. Meanwhile, for companies trying to recruit scarce talent in engineering and tech, one question: Can you build enough flexibility and variety into each job to make it more enticing than freelancing?