In an interview with The Times, Dr Rowan Williams said that the “portfolio approach to identity” is a trend that is affecting people’s sense of who and what they are.

“It is often said, I think with some truth, that the short-term job and the short-term relationship go together. The short-term job and the short span of attention go together.”

Dr Williams argued that spirituality was not something that could just be “bolted on at the edges”. People need an “inner chamber where things have time to echo”, he said.

The concept of the portfolio society was dreamt up by management gurus such as Charles Handy in the late 1990s to describe someone who would market himself as a collection of skills rather than as experienced in one job or career.

A study published in March by the vocational awards body City & Guilds indicated that those starting work in 20 years’ time will have 19 different jobs throughout their working lives, from internal promotions to new careers.

At the same time, divorce rates are continuing to increase, up to 160,000 in 2002 from 157,000 in 2001.

The Archbishop said: “That’s not saying we need to go back to going down the mines at 16 and staying there until 65. People were rightly glad to get away from the oppressiveness of that. But I just think we need to recognise that that’s a problem.”

His comments brought immediate agreement from other religious leaders.

The Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, said: “The great paradox of our time is that we face huge long-term problems while our lives have become more short-term than any previous generation — short-term jobs, short-term relationships, short-term fashions in everything from clothes to lifestyle to religious beliefs.”

Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “Dr Rowan Williams has put it most aptly. What we have really come to suffer from is short-termism which is nothing but a day-to-day and me-alone approach to life with little thought about tomorrow.

Dr Clive Marsh, secretary of the faith and order committee of the Methodist Church and author of Christianity in a Post-Atheist Age, said: “As usual, Rowan Williams’s comments are spot on.”

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