Meaning ● Labor Market Polarization, within the SMB context, signifies the increasing concentration of employment in high-skill, high-wage and low-skill, low-wage occupations, impacting workforce strategies. For SMBs, this bifurcation poses challenges in talent acquisition, requiring nuanced approaches to attract skilled labor and manage potential wage compression issues. The rise of automation further exacerbates this trend, potentially displacing mid-skill roles while creating demand for specialized technicians and high-level strategists; therefore, it forces businesses to invest into employee upskilling and specialized technical training in order to remain competitive. The increasing need for digital marketing specialists alongside traditionally demanded laborers, for example, shows the effects of an automated market on the business as a whole, potentially making SMB operations and automation implementation to further optimize business processes.
