Pensions provisions have long since been a concern for businesses who have seen over the last 10 years a big fall in investment returns in their pension funds together with an ever increasing life expectancy and therefore mushrooming pension liabilities for these depleted funds to cover.

We have seen companies try to tackle these issues by re defining benefits and asking their staff to accept the suggested changes. However a lot of the staff are displeased with the proposed changes and see any lessening in their pension availability (and other benefits) as unreasonable. Indeed in the UK at the moment there are huge issues with our postal workers, currently striking in order to shield the long time postal workers benefits. Royal Mail evidently saw problems looming a considerable amount of time ago. The employment contracts issued over the last five years provide employees with much less entitlement to benefits (including pensions) than workers who have been with the business for a longer period of time. So we have an strange situation within the organization at the moment, some workers out on strike to shield benefits they themselves are not actually entitled to.

We have just come through the worst episode of job losses that the UK has experienced for decades and following this depression we will see the initial stages of a recovery over the next few months. However the companies looking for new workers over the coming months will not be merely replacing like for like in the job offer and benefits stakes. They will be looking to increase employee numbers, but keep a firm check on the benefits that they are stuck with for the long term. Pensions offers will be much less attractive, to stop the growth of the current problems and job contracts may well be for shorter periods.

There might be some positive outcomes from the alterations too. As more and more companies exploit the power of Internet Business we will see some new organizations start to develop and offer a large amount of flexibility to the employee in terms of hours of work and place of work. This is particularly possible when looking at online companies. These have typically fared well throughout the downturn as they have typically a lower amount of overhead. Indeed a good number of them have in fact sprung up within the recession plugging gaps that the closure of more traditional businesses have left.

Opportunities to work whenever suits the individual are rising with these new business models and even the ability to Work From Home is on offer, not only providing excellent opportunities for people who have other responsibilities but also keeping the business expenses down at the same time. This form of flexibility will also make sure that the businesses keep hold of as many of their female staff as possible. Those who wish to have children are often in a difficult situation when trying to return to work and these new, much more flexible contracts and Online Jobs will at least be a helpful thing for these workers even though some of the other conditions may be inferior to post downturn job offers.