Higher education costs and lower barriers to entry mean that a new group is emerging on the employment landscape: the amateur professional, or ampro for short.
It’s happening everywhere we look: from bloggers breaking news stories typically reported by journalists to artists making platinum records in their bedrooms.
And while it certainly creates opportunities – to paraphrase Richard Branson pretty much anyone can now say ‘screw it, let’s do it’ – it is also creating a fundamental shift in the way people think about their careers.
Deloitte economics director Cassandra Wilkinson said the line between the amateur world and professional world was blurring.
“Where fixed costs of entry used to be very high – for example in publishing – you really needed somebody with a distribution chain or supply chain operation and essentially the distinction of who remained amateur and who was considered professional sat in the hands of the people who controlled the supply chain,” she explained.
“Now it is negotiated directly between the buyer and the seller – and the buyer and seller can decide simply by negotiation. So it is a process of removing that mediation between the buyer and seller which has pulled down those former distinctions.”
Wilkinson witnessed an ampro in action first-hand through her volunteer work with Sydney radio station FBi, where presenter Anna Burns organised a bona fide art auction at the Museum of Contemporary Art in just six weeks – and raised more than $50,000 in the process.
“I started approaching people – I took advice from a couple of friends and I sought out a few people that I respect and thought they would get what I was trying to do,” she explained.
“Then I asked them if they knew anyone else who would be interested who I could approach. I got the first round of people confirmed and sent out the invitations and started to get phone calls from people who had heard about it and wanted to be a part of it. It snowballed – it went from being an exhibition of 30 artists to something close to 50. It was pretty massive.”
And while Burns has no intention of becoming a full time curator or auctioneer, the show was acclaimed by the community with artists including Archibald finalist Jasper Knight, Deborah Kelly, Marley Dawson, Ms & Mr and Todd McMillan.
However while individual ampro stories may be successes, there are several long-term implications for society as a whole, says Carla Lipsig-Mumme, professor of labour studies at Canada’s York University.
“The freelance worker who can try their hand at highly skilled work – and maybe make it – is one way of interpreting it,” she said.
“Another way of looking at it is that the quality of work becomes highly variable for the rest of us and the freelancer has no career path – they may do well in second or third jobs but you are talking about chances, not a career path.
“I am not suggesting the old way of doing things – the old boys network – is what we want to do today. But what I am suggesting for those professions that non-professionals are attempting to enter is that there is no longer any certainty of quality or safety for the consumer or a career path for the chancer.”
Lipsig-Mumme pointed to the architecture profession in Canada, where a recent study found that as many as 80% of graduates with architecture qualifications couldn’t get a job in their field because employers were choosing to place their work with less skilled and cheaper draftsmen.
“These are fragmented and chaotic labour markets and young people in many cases cannot assume any assurances of continuing career paths,” she said.
“The problem is not with individuals who choose or choose not to follow these jobs, the problem is an overall picture of precarious employment and a loss of assurance that there is an adequate knowledge base underpinning the work.”
And while Lipsig-Mumme would not say whether ampros should be encouraged or discouraged, she did say there was another way of looking at the movement – the ampro is a step on the new unconventional career path.
“At a certain point of time in the 1990s in the depth of a bad recession in Canada a lot of people were working without wages,” she explained.
“If they were in restaurants they were working for tips and if they were in the media they were working for free at radio stations. What they were hoping to do was to be there, to get noticed and maybe get a paying job. Is that the amateur professional, or is that simply an unconventional pathway in to the work you want?”
While the choice to become an ampro remains one for the individual, Burns said there were things she learned from the experience.
“[You should] give yourself as much time as you can possibly have,” she explained.
“I also have a full-time job so it was pretty full on.
“Then it’s a case of thinking about and knowing what you are trying to do – whether it is the style or the look and feel that you are trying to put together. I figured out what the endpoint was and then worked out what it would take to get to the endpoint. I had a few key people who were kind of like my advisers or mentors.
“It helps when you are doing something you believe in. The reason it was such a success was because of the people involved and what it was for – it was something other people believed in too.”