Are you a light-blue collar worker? That is, a university-educated employee who earns only a bit more than an unskilled worker after accounting for all your extra hours. Or are you someone who has a seemingly prestigious job that, in truth, is like turning up to a sweatshop each day?

Technology, outsourcing and globalisation are turning some traditional white-collar office jobs into lower-paid labour, more akin to some types of blue-collar work. A crude distinction, I know, but consider how many white-collar jobs are being downgraded these days.

Are you questioning your career?

Take university lecturing as an example. Once among the most revered white-collar jobs, it has become a production line, at least for sessional or part-time academics at some universities who are paid a pittance, despite the great responsibility of teaching young minds.

A sessional academic with two masters degrees might earn $320 for a two-hour lecture. That sounds great, until you realise the academic spent a day preparing the lecture. Do the math and they might be on $30 an hour – less than the local barista earns on a public holiday, or the water-truck driver at a remote mine.