CONTINENTAL UNIVERSITY

ACADEMIC PRODUCT N°02

CURRENT LABOR MARKET AND ITS GLOBAL CHANGES

TEACHER : ELENA VIRGINIA DAVILA VICHARRA

COURSE : PROFESSIONAL MANAGEMENT

INTEGRANT:
 Carrillo Taipe, Deysi
 Silva Baila Juan Carlos Mario Alexander
 Paredes Ccana, Mayubik Yuvicza
 Vidal Quiñones, Rosa Delfina

RNC : 16470

YEAR 2021
 INDEX

No table of contents entries found.

1. Summary

This paper aims to present the profile of the administrative assistant; the position of
administrative assistant is one of the most representative areas within a company, this
staff must have a good decision making, responsible, analytical skills and ability to resolve
conflict, develop communication skills, digital knowledge, adaptability in the constant
variations, have a good leadership approach and encourage personal and professional
growth of its employees.

Theoretical Framework.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2019) notes that although administrative assistants
work in almost every industry, they are primarily employed in government, school,
hospital, law and medical offices. The majority of these workers in that country are full-
time employees. In Peru, on the other hand, there are no statistics or specific
information related to this job; however, regarding the level of employment in general,
the Ministry of Labor and Employment Promotion (2021), in its latest bulletin published
in February 2021, states that as of November 2020, there was a decrease of -7% in
formal private sector companies.n del Empleo (2021) in its latest bulletin published in
February 2021, states that as of November 2020, employment registered a decrease in
the private formal sector companies of -7.9% compared to the same period in 2019,
which implies a decrease of about 305 thousand jobs. According to the ministry, this
result is explained by the gradual resumption of economic activities after the declaration
of the State of National Emergency.

The latter information reflects one of the global consequences of the pandemic
unleashed by Covid-19: the contraction of employment, one of the main negative
effects of the crisis. This is why workers, regardless of their level of specialization, now
need to adapt to the new demands of a market with less labor supply. This is no
exception; therefore, for workers in the position of administrative assistants "who are
responsible for ensuring the smooth running of an office or company, performing
administrative tasks, such as filing, planning and coordinating the general activities of
the office, in addition to drafting the corresponding reports" (PAE - CERTIFICACIÓN
TELESUP, 2019, 10m38s). Under the current circumstances, it is urgent that these
professionals develop the necessary competencies for their jobs.
According to Chiavenato, quoted by Cerna and Martinez (2019) "it is required to have
labor competencies based on the knowledge and skills needed to perform certain tasks,
the act of knowing is sustained by knowing and learning, but knowledge only gets to
spread when people develop new learning capabilities" (p. 13). This is why we refer
below to recent studies on the skills that these workers must have to meet the needs of
today's labor market:

- Basic competencies: Refers to the world of work obtained with basic training,
such as reading and writing skills, oral communication, mathematical calculation.
These are the elementary competencies for living in a community and developing
in any work environment; that is, they are those on which the other competencies
are developed, which allow adapting to any area with the knowledge possessed
(Martens, cited by Meza, Cerna and Martínez, p. 14).

This group can include personal competencies, such as self-awareness, self-

regulation and motivation; and social competencies, such as empathy and social
skills.

- Generic competencies: These are those competencies common to several

occupations or professions, i.e. professionals in areas such as business
administration, accounting and economics, share a set of generic competencies
such as financial analysis and business management that will allow the worker to
carry out his or her work activities at different levels of competence. (Tobón, cited
by Cerna and Martínez, 2019, p. 14).

According to the World Economic Forum's "Future of Jobs Report" (2020), the 15
most in-demand skills in jobs by 2025 will be the following:

Table 1

List of 15 most in-demand skills in 2025

Source: World Economic Forum.(10/2020). The Future of Jobs Report.retrieved from

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2020.pdf
- Specific or labor competencies: Refers to a high degree of specialization in the
competencies of a specific occupation or profession, generally carried out by
technical programs in education for work training. (Mertens, cited by Cerna and
Martinez, 2019, p. 14).

Pastor (2020) identifies the following as the job competencies needed for
administrative assistants in a Peruvian district municipality:

Table 2

List of labor competencies identified by Pastor (2020)

1 Initiative

2 Knowledge of functions

3 Troubleshooting

4 Efficiency

5 Efficiency

6 Commitment

7 Achievement of objectives
Source: Pastor Salinas, A. (2020).Gestión por competencias y rendimiento laboral del personal administrativo de
la Municipalidad Distrital de Guadalupe,2020 [Undergraduate thesis, Universidad César Vallejo]. Institutional
Repository- Universidad César Vallejo

On the other hand, Chávez (2020) points out that labor competencies for
administrative workers comprise conceptual, attitudinal, technical and managerial
competencies, which are listed below:
Table 2

List of labor competencies identified by Chávez (2020)

Conceptual competencies Cognitive skills

Planning and organization

Ability to leverage information

Attitudinal competencies Capacity for creativity

Proactive attitudes

Willingness to serve

Conceptual competencies Know-how

 Instruments and working equipment

Technical language of the work area

Management skills Leadership and management skills

Management of activities and processes

Soundness and security in decision making

Source: Chávez Epiquén,A.(2020). Strengthening of labor competencies with the application of didactic modules
in university management in the administrative staff of the Universidad Nacional Intercultural de La Amazonía,
2020 [Undergraduate thesis, Universidad Señor de Sipán]. Institutional Repository- Universidad Señor de Sipán

3. Minimum requirements required by the labor market for the position of

administrative assistant.

We must specify beforehand that the labor market is based on job profiles; therefore, for a
worker who works as an administrative assistant, the following requirements must be
taken into account:

- Motivation, decisiveness, responsibility and adaptability to the constant

variations in this globalized world of work. Resilience, elasticity and capacity to
react to the diverse contexts in which the labor market develops in modern times,
very demanding nowadays, must be permanently taken into account, leaving
behind the overwhelming routine for new habits of personal and professional
growth, demonstrating as temperance and energy the diverse activities executable
in the day to day, spreading the positive towards the team.
- Analytical capacity and ability to resolve conflicts. These higher level soft skills
should not be used and required only for those at the managerial level, as we are
all capable of generating resolutions to various problems. The analytical capacity
whose characteristic is observation, logic and creativity, leads people to make the
right decisions after processing all the information related to the context in which
they find themselves, thus obtaining better results and less failures and
improvisations. The importance of applying conflict resolution brings with it a set of
knowledge and skills that help us to solve both internal and external factors that
usually occur in an organizational climate, so that by resolving them we can
achieve a much more fluid intercultural communication, without pretense or
hypocrisy.It should be taken into account that conflicts are best resolved by
 knowing their causes, establishing remedies and accepting that conflict is not a
characteristic that should be suppressed or ignored either by reason or by force,
but that it has a crucial role to play in the complexity of human relations.
- Excellent communication skills, service oriented, customer oriented and
proactive. It should be noted that this is one of the indispensable requirements
that every assistant must inherently carry with him/her, since he/she must
demonstrate the ability to transmit ideas, information or opinions in a clear and
convincing manner, either orally or in writing, in addition to knowing how to listen,
which fosters success in the workforce. "Communication is a bio-social, interactive
and interpersonal process that involves cognitive and affective experiences, which
occurs between people and is composed of elements that constantly interact"
(Ramos, 2019, p. 9), so communication skills play a very important role in listening,
empathy, assertiveness, self-esteem and resilience. In the same vein, there is the
vocation of service and customer orientation, which, adapted to the present
context, must be understood as the necessary commitment to overcome any type
of barrier, whether personal or social, within the labor market, always with the
action of serving, with a positive and empathetic attitude towards others, since by
satisfying and guiding the needs of the team, this would imply the path to reach
success.This is the way to reach success, by satisfying and guiding the needs of
the team. In the same way, proactivity makes the administrative assistant a positive
competitor, that is, one who takes control of the various events instead of just
watching how things happen and also allows him to anticipate problems by seeking
new solutions, giving the best of himself.
- Honest, discreet and with high levels of integrity. An administrative assistant
with a defined work integrity will never be related to illicit activities that cause harm
to society or the environment of the organizational climate in which he/she
operates. Corruption is almost everywhere where dishonest professionals leave
aside the principles and values by which they started their way, turning on the
alarms in function to the way in which the detriment of ethics has been given; being
this a desolate panorama which must be eliminated, promoting a requirement that
every administrative assistant must carry concatenated to allow the advance and
development of every company from the excellence.
- Organized and able to manage time effectively. According to the Center for
Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development (CIDE) of the Pontificia Universidad
 Católica del Perú (PUCP), "Time is a very valuable resource. Everything is
concatenated. (...)” (2019). The administrative assistant must be an excellent time
manager, in order to banish the administrative burden that many times results in
stress and lack of concentration, becoming an unhealthy factor neither for the
worker nor for the company. hindering the achievement of greater results in less
time. To do this, the administrative assistant must prioritize tasks, recognizing
which ones are important for the achievement of the goals and translating it into the
role of activities with times and dates, resulting in discipline. However, the
administrative assistant must optimize the famous dead time, bearing in mind that
rest is an essential practice in terms of recovering energy, and should not be
interrupted or distracted by distracting factors. The use of cell phones or electronic
devices prevents optimal respite, as they force the brain to remain alert. On the
other hand, it is worth mentioning that, planning your time can be affected by
multiple factors, so it is important to take control and advise the employer, the
alternative mechanisms of solution.
- Digital skills: Nowadays it is impossible to think of an industry that has not been
affected by digital transformation. In this sense, workers must be able to cope with
technological devices, programs and other digital tools, especially in regional or
global companies.
- Collaborative work: Group competencies are highly valued by recruiters since the
employee is in constant interaction with colleagues, bosses, suppliers, customers,
among others; in other words, he/she does not work in isolation. Previously, many
of the traditional competencies focused on a single individual, but did not consider
a team.
- Compatibility between personality and job: This refers to the relationship
between the personalityd and the occupation performed. This factor seeks to
confirm that people who have the skills and abilities to perform the functions
required by their job will feel more satisfied with their development.
- Problem solving: Every day professionals must make decisions within their
workspace, offering innovative solutions to colleagues and clients. It is necessary
for young people to be able to react quickly, taking action to solve difficult
problems.
- Communication skills: Nowadays they must have good communication skills, at
all levels. The ability to communicate efficiently, to construct clear messages and to
 get them across, bearing in mind both the context and the interlocute itself, will be
valued.

4. Conclusions.

1. The position of administrative assistant is a job in constant demand; however, it

currently requires specialization focused on the use of new information and
communication technologies (ICT) and the application of the skills described in the
World Economic Forum report in October 2020.
2. The vanguard of the 21st century requires administrative assistants to incorporate
the use of information and communication technologies as inherent tools in their
work.
3. all work performed, in order to promote a redesign of more professional activities,
with new challenges that will encourage interest and active participation during the
work context that he/she performs.
4. The dizzying changes in the use of technologies and media force professionals,
such as administrative assistants, to adapt to new ways of working and, therefore,
to develop new competencies based on soft and hard skills.
5. An administrative assistant must work under professional ethics and must generate
some change or improvement in the company during his/her work period.

Bibliographic references
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