Nothing is forever - and that includes employment

A philosopher might argue that life is temporary - we are born, we live and we die. But Quest is not concerned with such deep and far-reaching questions about the human condition. We are talking here about work after the Services; and that is something that the vast majority of people who are currently proudly wearing uniform will have to contemplate one day.

A Service career may stretch between four and twenty-two years, or longer. It may continue to the age of 55 or even later. It can contain open engagements, nine-year engagements, option points and a whole host of other measures. Even resettlement time is measured in these bands, which all have one thing in common: they are much longer than most civilian employment terms.

It is still possible to be employed on a long-term contract, but it may not be worth the paper it is written on anywhere outside the public sector. And in most instances the rate of pay will reflect the benefits of such a contract. However, many traditional organisations like charities and city firms are gradually changing shape and working culture, and even the employment dinosaurs - big, traditional, slow, often public-sector concerns - are being forced to evolve.

The brutal truth is that some organisations go into liquidation or receivership, they amalgamate or merge, they downsize or outsource according to market pressures, and individual employment prospects change as a result. And please do not imagine that the traditional military notice period of one year is the norm in the civilian world. The reality is one month, possibly three. This is not, by the way, brutality by the bosses; it simply reflects commercial reality - few organisations know where they will be more than a year ahead. Even big ones have a reasonable expectation of contracts worth billions of pounds in a year's time based on previous experience, but they probably do not yet know which ones they will be out of those they are currently negotiating.

Do not, by the way, believe that everybody who walks away from the loss of a job or an employment tribunal gets such a good deal that they never have to work again. Maybe one in ten thousand city fat cats end up laughing all the way to Phuket after their contract is terminated but the rest of the world does not enjoy such a happy result.

In any case, some industries and some people work on short-term contracts. Project management, close protection, interim management, construction and consultancy are examples of employment in which people probably cannot expect more than a few weeks or months certainty of tenure before it is time to look for the next opportunity.

We are all used to hearing about job losses throughout the UK. What is rarely publicised are job gains. The effect of downsizing or outsourcing is that a major company sheds a function like, for example, transport and therefore sacks drivers. This means that it no longer has its own transport fleet, but it still needs to have its goods moved because it is still in business.

Therefore the transport function is contracted out to another, often smaller, supplier, which promptly needs to hire more drivers to cope with this new business. So the net result is probably a small decrease overall in driving jobs in the area but nothing like the job losses that are announced. However, the new jobs will often be on a shorter contract than the old ones as the smaller company is not in a position to give long-term employment guarantees.

The job market is fluid. New technology, competition, increased sub-contracting and the removal of unnecessary management layers have all played their part, with the end result being opportunities for those who want them. It is no longer the norm to stay in one place, doing one job, rising slowly through the ranks to retirement. Workers need to be multi-skilled, constantly adding to what they can offer, prepared to accept non-traditional roles, and fleet of both foot and mind.

People's own circumstances can change due to marriage, divorce, schooling, inheriting a house or money, or for many other reasons. Some may like the idea of portfolio working - providing services to a number of different clients and often working from home or in their premises. The great advantage of this is that if one employer goes under, not all income is lost.

In so far as future employment patterns can be predicted, organisations are likely to have a few highly valued and well-rewarded core employees to run the core business, with large numbers of contract workers hired short-term to perform non-core or short-term tasks. Those people who do not fit into the first category - the majority of us - can expect to be in the second. Possibly less certain than life in the Services, but full of opportunity.