Digitalization of countries and the power to be able to supply innovation in both production technologies and national dimension, accepted as a developedness in-dicator by many international organizations, became one of the interest areas of a new type of economic literature. This new economic system, in which information and, in turn, technology have become the cornerstone of the economic system makes important effects and contributions on/to country economies. Apart from its undeniable contribution to productivity increase, the effects of digitalization on economic relationships and activity on the labor structure of countries and employment should be separately discussed. That is, in the production process of countries, to what degree the labor factor as its obligatory input can integrate into the digitalization process forms the most important leg of the successes of countries in becoming a digital economy. On the other hand, the fact that the information process becomes so integrated into each stage of production grants it the ability to differentiate the qualification degree of a certain labor. When it is dealt with from this aspect, digitalization in economic life, in other words, the effects of the digital economic system on employment, is an important study area that needs to be dealt with.
The digitalization process has stamped its effects in both negative and posi-tive aspects on the development of the economy and employment. In terms of SMSEs, when it is put forward that they can face a danger of disappearance in the digital economic environment, the integration of the transformation process is importantly emphasized. The Report on Appearance of Digital Economy (2015), published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), attracts attention in terms of some points it deals with. In the report, the deep effect of the digital economy on key sectors such as banking, energy, education, health, and transformation in the world economy and its reflections increasing global trade are emphasized. In the report, in which it is emphasized that the digital economy has yet to range below its potential, it is revealed that OECD countries and economic partners believe that it is important to catch the potentials of people in order to get tangible growth. In addition, according to reports great potentials were recorded on the ict and digital aspects. In addition, in the report, governments in OECD countries attract attention to the fact that the digital economy increases awareness toward the requirement of responding to
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main difficulties such as strategically developing the digital economy, increasing its benefits, reducing unemployment and inequalities, and rescuing people from poverty. The national digital strategies of the present day include a variety of issues such as opening work areas to productivity increase, public administration, em-ployment, education, health, aging, and development. According to the abstract of the report (http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org) it is necessary for infrastructure, which provides the basis for new business models, e-trade, and new cooperative scientific and social networks to be of high quality, to be accessible by everybody, and to be reachable at competitive prices. On the other hand, governments, although they remain in a difficult position in the face of some changes including the integration of job models around competition in the digital economy, telecommunications suppliers, and new Internet players have to participate in efforts to keep artifi-cial barriers in front of the access points and strengthen legislation consistency.
Strengthening mobile markets should not lead to regression in innovation and the competitive ability of other actors.
In the report of the World Bank titled “World Development Report 2016: Digi-tal Benefits”, for the expected development return of the digi2016: Digi-tal age to be able to be revealed, two main actions are recommended. According to the report, besides closing the digital gap by making the Internet universal, cost-effective, clear, and reliable; digitalization strengthens the arrangements providing competi-tion between businesses, making the skills of employees suitable to the demands of the new economy, and should provide the accountability of organizations. In addition, in the report, which states that digital development strategies should be more comprehensive than the strategies of information and communication tech-nologies, strategies for making the businesses of countries more productive and effective are discussed, including: investing in the main infrastructure, lowering the cost of conducting business, reducing barriers in front of trade, facilitating the access of new businesses to enter the market, strengthening the competitiveness of organizations, and providing competition on digital platforms (www.tobb.org.tr).
Together with the new economy, important changes occurred in business life and economic course. With the above given information, traditional work flow has also undergone a change. The traditional work structure in the tangible structure based on material and physical skill leaves its place on the information process, which is based on information and mental working and constitutes an intangible structure. However, while there is a physical transfer in the traditional business structure, there is information transfer in the new structure (Nickols, 2003: 3).
As a result of these changes regarding business life, under the effect of informa-tion and technology, the quality of the tradiinforma-tional labor force also underwent a
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change. In this new order, in which the traditional labor force was not enough, workers were needed who had the ability to be able to solve the problem and provide analysis and coordination using information, and who were qualified, creative, open to innovation, and open to learning. In other words, as a result of the digital economy, learning economies, and learning individuals and firms can provide the advantage in competition.
When it is dealt with from this aspect, although digitalization creates eco-nomic income, competitiveness, an innovative culture, and most importantly, employment, there are some views that it increases unemployment, in a gen-eral sense, especially in some sectors. Especially in the manufacturing sector, the development in digital technologies is creating huge unemployment. As a result of robots and machines, large companies move toward the limitation of personnel. For using this kind of technological method, in fact, since there is a need for personnel trained at a certain level, workers making physical efforts in the traditional economy, together with the development of new production systems, are replaced with educated workers and, in turn, non-educated workers remain unemployed. However, in developed countries, since the employment level is high, in the dismissals resulting from technological development, with the formation of another work area, the temporary unbalance in employment establishes its own balances in the short term. In these countries, those re-maining unemployed can be continuously recruited by service sectors. Thus, in contrast to the view that technology increases unemployment, technological developments are evaluated as factors leading to unemployment for a long time (Yücel, 1997: 91, Cited by Yumuşak & Özgür, 2007: 34). One of the effects of the new economy on unemployment is also that it forms new employment forms.
Lifelong employment under single employers and forms of standard traditional employment having protection features against unfair abolition enter under the press of atypical employment forms and also qualify as flexible business relationships. Atypical employment is based on an atypical service contract prepared to meet the needs of employees and make the labor force flexible.
In some cases, various sorts of atypical contracts can be applied together or intertwined (Yumuşak & Özgür, 2007: 34). When the features of atypical em-ployment are considered such as that it leads to labor force polarization, the forming of environmental effects in businesses, and that it does not have job and social insurance security, it is possible to say that it leads to some problems.
These problems, which arise from the traditional employment model, are not compatible with the dynamics that the new formation brings after digitalization and reduce homogeneity of the labor force (Benli & Gümüş, 2002: 592).
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Turning digitalization into strategy and being able to reach the desired level in terms of operational competences is the key point in terms of the competi-tive power of firms. As is given place in the Report of the Results of Accenture Digitalization Index Turkey (2015), the digital transformation of in–company competences, enabling companies to become more efficient, more simple, more flexible, and more agile, develops their competitive positions. What makes digital technologies attractive is that they change the working styles of companies and any activity or process has the ability to make improvement related to the distance of time and cost. In the digital age, in order to create a jump in productivity and effectivity and improve efficiency at the institutional level, making in-company operations and processes parallel with work flows and organizational structure are the most important points. On the other hand, according to the report, digitali-zation incorporates opportunities and risks together. Together with the burning effect of digitalization, companies may lose their competitive passions that they obtain in the long term. In the meaning of growth, effectiveness, and competitive power, every company, and every sector can internalize digitalization. In the last 10 years, digitalization caused a portion of the traditional company to disappear and this situation appears as a result of the business model of the traditional sector being demolished by digital business models. On the other hand, the probability of companies catching the opportunities that digitalization brings to change the way that they do work and strengthen their competitive position are very high.
These qualitative and quantitative changes occurring on a global scale force the production sector to innovate in a competitive meaning. Economic structures that make an effort to be able to sustain their activities in the economic system and increase their market share in markets undergoing continuous change are obliged to make effort, especially in increasing their effectivity, to become a part of the innovation economy. From constituting production to realizing sale and post-sale services, including the phenomenon in their processes, for businesses is no longer needed to create a luxurious thing or difference, but is a complete requirement. Ambiguity competition faces as a result of innovative processes makes it obligatory for the integration to an information based economic system for sustainable competition. In this meaning, businesses begin to search for new ways to increase their effectivities and profit margins.
When it is considered that the economic system passes beyond the Keynes-ian, Classic, Monetarist, etc. analyses, the importance of understanding, predict-ing, and implementing information also increases. It is obvious that traditional views remain inadequate to describe economic relationships. In this meaning, new movements shake orthodox principles and many new interdisciplinary
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movements, especially the neuroeconomy. The radically changing new economic system generates, in terms of the meaning charged on the production function and production factors, increases in effectivity but leads the labor force, which is unskilled or does not have enough knowledge, to be pushed out of the sys-tem. When the digital economy becomes widespread, the cultural models are all replaced with the digital models. The most basic reason for this situation is the target of minimum cost and maximum effectivity; in turn, profit maximization.
The features of the learning firm present the advantages of competitive power to businesses in both sectorial and global dimensions. There are some remarkable differences between traditional firms and the firms which learn, and thus, are in-novative and adopt the approach of information and quality oriented effectivity.
Together with the new economic system, the homogenous structures of businesses into a heterogeneous structure, in which multiple production styles based on a dif-ferentiation strategy is adopted. The basis of this transformation process naturally comes together with learning, information, innovative production, and specializa-tion. The fact that businesses are concentrating on flexibility as the ability to be able to adapt effectivity as well as changing global conditions and technological production systems is remarkable. And all of these changes are related to being able to supply an information based economic system and mechanism in business.
In other words, providing digitalization in all stages of production.
The effects of the digitalization process on employment occur, depending on the changes concerned. In the environment, in which increasing competition, and information and continuous innovation become the most important element, the share of the “information worker” gradually increases in terms of employment.
The feature of the information worker is that he/she is creative. Therefore, it is necessary to arrange economic policy so that it can increase the skilled labor force that can use information processes. The increase of employment depends on that economic growth being growth creating employment. In other words, it depends on it being effective growth. The output of growth is employment. This output also makes the structure of the factor labor force dominant, while active policies (in–public placing and mediation services, occupational education, poli-cies toward young people, and polipoli-cies toward disabled people) defined by the OECD and passive policies (early retiring, severance pay) are applied. Economic policy, especially applying policies, which increase the information accumula-tion of labor and create skilled labors, will both actualize the growth process and increase employment (Karaçor, 2012: 37).
Apart from the social and cultural effects of the digital age, its effect on effec-tivity is of course at an undeniable degree. Besides it enabling some employment
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possibilities to be created, digitalization, which leads some business lines, espe-cially those based on manpower, to completely disappear, causes many changes in both a national and global meaning. Many new digital media types, especially electronic trade, which present the opportunity for product and service diversity, make the strategies of businesses in the way of competition difficult. More shares make it necessary to be well, different, and flexible, and thus, to be able to integrate into the digital world. This situation is certainly possible with the qualified labor force. When the case is dealt with from this aspect, even some productions are becoming digitized which creates a large amount of unemployment. The secto-rial effects of becoming widespread of ICTs are remarkable. For example, the effect of digital content services on the printing house, paper, and ink sectors was destructive and, as a result of profits decreasing in these sectors, remarkable work losses were experienced. This effect of decreasing employment, which may be evaluated as a sort of creative destruction in terms of some sectors, when the whole economy is taken into consideration, runs oppositely. The most important cause of this situation is that profit, which forms as a result of the improvement of business models and increasing effectivities, turns into investment and creates new employment areas.
In the world, with the development of ICTs, a process has emerged, in which work becomes independent form physical spaces by means of technologies such as the Internet. At this point, albeit the information economy increases the employ-ment of new jobs and new occupations, there are two points that are necessary to be ignored. In the first of them, together with the development of the information economy, industrial production accepting large employment levels lost power and, instead of this, mostly technology based production developed and, with this development, the demand for the labor force increased. The second point is that the information economy incorporates the tendency that new unemployed people form. The information economy restricts some businesses from havin traditional structures and employment. In this scope, together with the information economy, for the works repeated in the production and service sector, the view that work de-mand will decrease and that there is a future for skilled technicians at an advanced level and managers is put forward. For significant sections of the population, the work in today’s meaning will completely disappear (Doğuç, 2006: 28).
Besides technology, the information bunch that comes from digital places could be again solved in the digital system that would again be the reason for unemployment. The intensive competition in the information economy, reasons such as labor productivity based on muscle force being low, problems emerging in management activity, and the shifting of investments to areas of advanced
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technology to provide labor force savings are explained as the other factors reduc-ing employment (Kutlu, 2005: 101, Cited by Doğuç, 2006: 28).
It is necessary to shortly express, that albeit the digital economy enables new employment areas and new activity areas to emerge, it also brings some drawbacks with it. In particular, industrial production, which incorporates large employment numbers, lost its power and, instead of this, a production model mostly based on technology developed and caused the need for the labor force to decrease.
Another point is that the digital economy incorporates the tendency that new unemployed people form. It is possible to say that this system that is experiencing rapid technological development especially has an extreme structure.