What are the implications of the rise in part-time work for organisations and for workers?
This is the topic of the lead item in @XpertHR's March 2013 #HRdata round-up article and a follow-up post, which focuses more fully on peak jobs.

I'm delighted to report that these stories have sparked rich debate on Twitter. Here are some of the responses.

Defining 'peak jobs'

So what does peak jobs mean?

Leading UK HR blogger @flipchartrick defines peak employment/ #peakjobs as follows:
"The idea that technology would reduce the need for human work didn’t go away though. It has reappeared in the form of the Peak Employment theory – the idea that the advanced economies are reaching the limit of their ability to create jobs. In the 2010s, though, the Zeitgeist is less optimistic than it was in the 1970s. This time, automation promises not leisured affluence but increasingly casualised and precarious employment."

Australian blogger Shane Granger (aka @gmggranger on Twitter) defines peak jobs as "the idea that technology is replacing jobs faster than it's creating them."

Jane Watson (@jsarahwatshr) presents a beautifully balanced approach to the topic at hand, looking at utopian and dystopian visions of the future of work (including #peakjobs theories) in this brilliant post:

@RobotsRPeople highlights the implications for humans of #peakjobs:

@ChelseyArmstrongT doesn't like the sound of the potential implications of #peakjobs for HR:

The Simpsons does 'peak jobs' (and underemployment, too)!

The Simpsons has already tackled the topic of peak jobs (and - briefly - of underemployment, too), in an episode entitled Them, Robot.

Here's IMDB's summary of the episode: "Mr. Burns replaces all of the nuclear plant employees with robots--except for Homer, who stays along to supervise the robots and serve as a human scapegoat."

Did Charlie and the Chocolate Factory predict #peakjobs?

@Whippasnappahr tweets that the works of Roald Dahl have prepared her for the concept of #peakjobs:

Is the full-time working era a 'post war blip'?

My article looks at trends in the number of part-time workers over recent years.@GrumpyLecturer takes a longer-term view, putting forward the fascinating theory that it is actually the current era (which might be argued to be characterised by a domination of workforces in many industrialised cultures by full-time workers) that will prove to be a "post-war" blip.