We will increase our global population from 7 billion today to 9 billion in 2050, Australia will move from 23.7 today to 40 million in 2050 and Brisbane from 2.2 million today to 4.2 million in 2050, there are huge implications in these population increases and one of them is the notion of work.

In a world that seems to be shedding jobs, where technology is evolving the way we work away from routine jobs to more specialised tasks and with industries literally disappearing before our eyes, how will we employ today’s people let alone tomorrow’s workforce.

Work of course puts food on tables, roofs over people heads, but for most of us it does much more, it provides a sense of well being, dignity, self worth and purpose.

This big issue was the focus of this weeks regular chat with 4BC’s Clare Blake as we explored the changing workforce away from a 9-5 Monday to Friday post industrial norm to a work where, when and how is appropriate model. In this new work frontier many of us will have 6 careers and 14 jobs, work into our 80’s based on a lifespan of 120 and have a work portfolio rather than a job.

This work portfolio might see us with a range of concurrent income producing activities mixed in with other hobbies and secondary skilled jobs. It may see some of these coming from providing services and tasks through digital marketplaces which may now include ebay, airtasker, fiverr, airbnb, etsy and maybe seeking funds or resources for more audacious builds or roll outs from crowdfunding sites like pozible, kickstarter and indiegogo.

Listeners rang in to voice their concern about our current immigration adding to this burden but this to me is not the reason for the concern, it just adds to it and this conversation catapulted us into looking at where we’re going to house this growing population, whether our current infrastructure will cope with this growth and my thoughts on the need to grow satellite villages that connect our larger cities to others, using fast transport, great roads, well serviced with utilities and infrastructure and where work is available or undertaken locally.

Lots in this weeks chat, so listen in now (17 minutes) and then share your thoughts on Jobs 2050