Goodbye to work for life: work tourists arrive

They are young, have been trained in new technologies and their knowledge is coveted by companies in a labor market increasingly crossed by digitalization. And they're not going to work in one company like their parents did. On the contrary, they are "work tourists", as Tomás Pereda, deputy director general of the Máshumano Foundation, calls them, "who jump from vine to vine and remain in each project for an average of 1.2 years".

"When there is a lot of demand and little supply of professional profiles, the technicians have the upper hand." So says Alejandro González, CEO of the personnel selection platform Taalentfy, who also explains that in the technology sector the balance of supply and demand has fallen on the side of workers. "They can afford to be a little more exquisite. If they don't like something —salary, conciliation, location, face-to-face—, then they change their organization." While companies complain about difficulties in attracting and fixing talent, workers point out that migrating companies is the only way to improve their working conditions and move up.

"Work for life is over," says the deputy director of the Máshumano Foundation, which helps companies transform their work models; In their place are lavished these new employees that abound so much in the technology sector, "work tourists", "workers who do not want to stay in a single company for their entire working lives. They believe that in an unstable world, the only stability is oneself, and that is provided by living different experiences in different companies, projects, roles, functions ...", he explains.

Carlos Cuadra (Antequera, 35 years old) is a software developer. In the seven years he has been working in the technology industry, he says he has changed companies "seven or eight times". For Cuadra, this is "the only way to improve working conditions", although he recognizes that it is a sector in which it is well paid. Along the same lines, Roberto Caselles (Malaga, 34 years old) points out. For this backend developer —whose job is to connect web pages with data servers—, the sector is in a good moment, but work trips are also explained by the little involvement of some companies with their workers: "Many times the logic is: I will not invest money in a senior worker if I can have five kids who have just left the race and with a little training they get the job", Points.

In a labor market that tries to placate temporality, and that in fact advances in that line – between 2021 and 2022 the effect of the labor reform has caused the percentage of temporary contracts to fall from 26% to 17.9% – the voluntary abandonment of the job grows. This turnover stood at an annual average of 2022% in 17. The main cause of the change of company was the search for better opportunities in other companies or sectors (77.2%), according to a study by Randstad. Reasons similar to those of the technology sector, although the average salary stands at 44,000 euros per year, according to the selection firm Prosperity: the salary followed by the search for professional progress and the possibility of working 100% remotely are the main reasons.

But Cuadra points out that money is not always the trigger: "Sometimes you are in a project, you see that you can not do much more and you switch to another." Other times, as happened in October of last year, money was not the determining factor: "In the last change I have not valued the salary so much as the company. I had always been in consultancies, in large companies, but they offered me to go to a start-up. I was motivated by the work environment and that's what I prioritized."

Roberto Caselles, 34-year-old computer scientist. Garcia-Santos (El Pais)

This dynamic environment, in which offers abound, also has a negative side. "Since they know you're leaving, most companies try to squeeze as much out of you as possible," says Roberto Caselles. He, like Cuadra, prioritized the good work environment over salary in his last change of company. For Pereda, the reality of work has changed, either because in some sectors employment possibilities allow travel from one position to another or because precariousness leads to a constant search for better opportunities. "People come and go, it's a new way of living," he concludes.

High turnover

In general, the professional branches that present the worst working conditions are those that suffer the most from this volatility in employment, with hospitality and real estate activities leading the rankings with 63.7% and 44.8% turnover, respectively. But in the digital sector, the analysis is more complex.

According to the CEO of Experis, Myriam Blázquez, there are two factors that explain the labor volatility in technological profiles. The first is the dynamism and constant technical evolution in digital matters that requires continuous training. "Profiles that were valid five years ago are now not," he explains. The second is the horizontality of the phenomenon. "Almost all jobs will always have a digital component because technology is transversal to all positions." There are many more job opportunities, but the education system is trailing demand.

Blázquez says that the most mobile strip occurs among those employees who have between 3 and 10 years of accumulated seniority. In the case of Débora Vidal (Gijón, 34 years old), the reason for staying in the company where she has worked for nine years is the "good working environment". But this electrical engineer does not rule out a change of company "in the near future" because in the offers that come to her the base salaries are in the same range as hers.

Whether it is a vital philosophy, nonconformity, shortage of profiles or need for workers to improve working conditions, the reality is that, according to estimates made by human resources companies, the average level of turnover in Spain will continue to increase. "These are rules of the game that we have to know how to play. In the same way that there is rotation and people leave, you can generate the conditions to attract new people," concludes Blázquez.

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