ted instead of flat-out layoffs (and have been), but the benefit to management is still a lower payroll, i.e. individual pay cuts. If the employer allows telecommuting, part of the benefit is a decreased need for the employer to provide physical space. On the other hand, if I could telecommute to my current job, I could save almost 2 hours a day just in commute time, which is a benefit to me without affecting my employer at all. Technological options that allow different work structures (without necessarily affecting the total amount of time worked) seem more realistic to me. But a whole lot of the economy is still based on moving atoms, and people are still going to have to keep going to centralized points for processing those atoms. There's also the element to which technology may help small businesses. Unfortunately, while there are a lot of benefits to be seen here, small businesses seem to demand more time, not less (in my very limited experience). Until there is increased profits to be made by having workers, work fewer hours, the trend towards more work hours is here to stay. In response to trends in our current work in the past few years, there seems to have been a resurgence of a way of thinking that has been termed "Voluntary Simplicity". Possibly this resurgence is a consequence of the overspending and consumerism of our society in addition to the increase in the workweek. While the ideas of cutting back on spending -- or "consumerism" -- to the bare bones, making things last longer, and getting the necessities as cheaply as possible are by no means new -- undoubtedly they have been around for numerous decades -- the terminology of Voluntary Simplicity (VS) probably became popular during the 1970's. This resurgence of this movement comes at a time when consumer debt is at it's highest. The following information was taken from the March 31, 1998 edition of the Economic Advertiser: - Consumer debt has soared...
