On Work and Life by 2040

How Will We Work?

Much More Time -- In terms of how we will work, we will be far more IDLE due to something called technological unemployment, due to robotic process automation and AI, that will reduce the number of jobs, the hours we work, and give us more time because we will be working far less.

Working Later, Longer -- Youth will begin their careers later in life; we will work well past 65 due to spikes in longevity; and we will hire based on expertise, not location due to more than an estimated 50 to 75% of all employers allowing staff to work from home.

RTO Battle – Right now, there is a battle underway where the media is portraying that the days of remote work are coming to an end.?And much of this media battle is being perpetuated by those who have the most to lose – retail and commercial office space land owners who have been decimated by millions learning that they are far happier and often far more productive working from home, and employers realizing that, they, too, are far happier and productive working from home AND the very real cost savings not having to pay rent, for office furniture, equipment and all the expense of maintaining for physical infrastructure that employees now pay by working from home.

We are increasingly seeing headlines like this WSJ article [“Office Landlord Defaults Are Escalating as Lenders Brace for More Distress”] where big office landlords are defaulting due to massive vacancies and high interest rates -- real-estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield forecasts the U.S. will have a record 1.1 billion square feet of vacant office space by the end of the decade – and I think this projection is fantastically low because the number of workers going to offices has flatlined at about half the pre-pandemic level, a result of the shift to hybrid and remote work.?This is a massive trend that will impact 5.9 million commercial buildings containing?97 billion square feet?of floor space.?

A third of the workforce has bid good riddance to it all -- business wear, commuting, overpaying for lunch, fitting humans into cubes, an open work plan or stuffing three interns or junior staff into an office while more senior leaders keep their office empty as they work from home, poor souls squeezing into a booth chamber thing to have a private conversation, etc. ?Can you imagine our affordable housing crisis will be OVER when office buildings will have been converted to residential.

Universal Health, Day Care and Income – The current extreme wealth and profit hoarding will have been resolved, resulting in unprecedented tax increases on corporations and ultra-high net worth individuals that will allow for universal health care, day care, and a baseline income for all.

Clean Jobs – With the gutting of middle class jobs, we must claw back environmentally-friendly manufacturing jobs from China by placing extreme tariffs on the massive number of goods produced in China, but we will have lost our dominance in the global supply chain due to China’s massive, utterly transformative Belt and Road infrastructure initiative that will have been implemented in most countries by 2035.?

Global Increase in Per Capita Income ... due to increase in trade – In 2023, the average per capita income in:

U.S. and Canada -- 78,675

Europe -- 29,483 –- among 36 countries

LATAM -- 10,681 – among 33 countries

Arab World – 7,3774

East Asia -- 12,483 – China, Japan, S/N Korea, 30 more

South Asia – 2,308 – Bangladesh, India, Iran, Pakistan, 5 more

Sub-Sahara Africa -- 1,636 -- among 52 countries?

In the Middle East, the PCI ranges widely among 20 countries widely from 50,124 in Qatar and 44,177 in Israel to less than a 5,000 per year in 10 countries including Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Pakistan.?

In Ukraine, the annual PCI reached a high of 2,601 in 2013 and was 2,145 in 2020.

Free and fair trade will be the rising tide that will lift all boats, not just some. ?I have worked most of my life to bring economic opportunity for all so it is a profound thought that soon we will have brought better lives for all – or most -- not just some.

How Will We Live?

Amazon Ubiquitous -- In terms of how we will live, much of our retail and commercial landscape will have been transformed into Amazon fulfillment, distribution and purchase return centers. Amazon will also dominate in cloud, AI, ML, logistics, supply chain, entertainment, media, space, healthcare, renewable energy, autonomous vehicles and drone delivery, and smart home technology.

Golden Era of Memory Making -- Retail will be replaced by experience, memory making places -- bake it yourself bakeries, places for kids to play board games, cooking classes, massive slides, ice rinks and ski slopes, pet washes, hyper unique bars and restaurants, rock climbing, yoga salons and leg and face shave bars, are just a few of the creative ways we create experiential, being together moments.

Commercial Market Implosion – As I mentioned, we are just entering a commercial market implosion. Most office buildings will close – and convert to residential, urban farming or destroyed to reclaim green space. The home real estate boom started in 2020 began the exodus from cities and will continue as smaller cities, towns and village finally come back to life.

Everything Brought to Your Home -- If you can buy it online and have it delivered by drone within minutes, that store will have disappeared -- even CVS and Walgreen pharmacies and doctor’s offices will close and be taken over by Amazon.?I love the thought of doctor and nurses making house calls again – as my grandfather and great grandfather who were doctors and their nurse wives did in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Services In Our Homes – By 2040, instead spending time finding something to buy, commuting, or driving to our doctor, banker, lawyer, therapist, hair, nail, massage and other service providers, these services will be brought to our homes, giving us far more time … to be immersed in experiences, interacting with others, learning, and traveling like never before.

Though it will be a tough transition both mentally, emotionally and economically, but by the time we get to 2040, it will be a better, more purposeful, meaningful place.?But we need moral, ethical leaders – in our homes, in communities, and most definitely in our economy and in the C-Suite to get us all there.?