Key trends in the labour market

Transcription

1 Workshop UNI-Europa, Berlin, 11/12/ Shaping industrial relations in a digitalising service industry Workshop on labour markets Berlin, 11 December 2017 Key trends in the labour market Gérard Valenduc Associate researcher at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) Honorary associate professor at the University of Namur, BE Workshop UNI-Europa, Berlin, 11/12/ Changes in employment 2 3 Changes in work contents and skills profiles Changes in the employment relationship 1

2 Workshop UNI-Europa, Berlin, 11/12/ What about recent forecasts: 50% of jobs threatened by computerisation within years, or only 10%? Workshop UNI-Europa, Berlin, 11/12/ Discrepancies between forecasts are due to different interpretations of the relationship potential of a new generation of digital technologies human tasks likely to be substituted by technologies changes in occupations threatened jobs First approach: based on the definition of occupations Increasing computerisation of material and cognitive tasks, including non-routine tasks, leading to an increasing probability of substitution Empirical base: US description of occupational categories Occupations most likely to be substituted entail destruction of the corresponding job Results: about 50% of jobs with a high probability of destruction, 33% with a low probability Reference: Oxford study (Frey & Osborne, 2013), reproduced by a series on consultants in in various EU countries 2

3 Workshop UNI-Europa, Berlin, 11/12/ Second approach: based on the analysis of job contents Within a same occupation, job contents are very heterogeneous. Almost all occupations include a variable mix of automatable and onautomatable tasks. Recently expanding occupations are those in which human tasks are supported by digital tools, instead of substituted. Empirical base: OECD PIAAC database on competences at work Result: 8-12% of jobs will be threatened by digitalisation, but half of them will be transformed Reference : OECD study by Arntz & a. (2016) + other publications of ZEW Mannheim Workshop UNI-Europa, Berlin, 11/12/ Third approach: based on working conditions surveys How many jobs do not include any significant capacity of task flexibility, reactivity, problem solving, social interaction, human intuition? Only those jobs are really threatened, other jobs will have to include an increasing part of non-substitutable tasks Empirical base: French working conditions survey (partly based on the European working conditions survey of Eurofound) Results: construction of an automatability index relying on the observation of actual working conditions, not on experts assessment. About 10% of high index (similar to ZEW results) Reference : France Stratégie (Le Ru, 2016) and Conseil d orientation pour l emploi (2017) 3

4 Workshop UNI-Europa, Berlin, 11/12/ Changes in work contents and occupations Work contents are produced by social relations, not by technology Strong technological determinism has already led to wrong or exaggerated previsions in the past decades Learning from past experience of computerisation: it is not because tasks can be automated/computerised that the whole job disappears From a company to another, an occupation may consist of very different mix of tasks, as a result of HR management and power relations Technological change helps to recompose job contents, in favour of new tasks, including non-codified knowledge, soft skills, polyvalence An occupation is not only defined by tasks contents, but also by a position within an organisation, a learning trajectory, a career, a belonging to a working collective, an occupational identity, a bargaining power, etc. Workshop UNI-Europa, Berlin, 11/12/ Changes in work contents and occupations Emerging trends in work contents and skills profiles Moving and adjusting the cursor between respective capacities of human beings and robots/algorithms Promoting complementarity instead of substitution Analysing comparative advantages of humans in relation to intelligent devices Smart behaviour in non-structured or unpredictable environments Thinking and generating new ideas, having intuition Technical, organisational, relational and social creativity Translating ideas and creativity into innovations Designing and implementing strategies Managing human relations Working together with robots ( cobots ) or intelligent software agents 4

5 Workshop UNI-Europa, Berlin, 11/12/ Changes in the employment relationship Weakening (and even deconstruction) of the employment relationship Emergence of new business models: platform capitalism, ondemand work, crowd working, portfolio work Threats the basic components of the employment relationship Concept of workplace: multiple workplaces, blurring boundaries Meaning and measurement of working time: project work, task-based work, without relation to working hours Formation of wages: flexible wage, piece-wage, auction wage, unpaid work Blurred subordination links: in-between salaried worker and selfemployed; self-employment logic among employees, wage logic among self-employed (freelancers) Lack of representation of collective workers' interests The issue is not only how many jobs? but also what kind of jobs? Workshop UNI-Europa, Berlin, 11/12/ Background ETUI papers ETUI Working paper Work in the digital economy: sorting the old from the new Gérard Valenduc and Patricia Vendramin also available in French ETUI Foresight brief #1 (2017) Shaping the world of work in the digital economy Christophe Degryse also available in French 5

6 Workshop UNI-Europa, Berlin, 11/12/ Other selected references Arntz Melanie, Gregory T. and Zierahn U. (2016), The risk of automation for jobs in OECD countries. A comparative analysis. OECD Social, employment and migration working papers, no. 189, Paris: OECD Publishing. Arntz Melanie, Gregory T. and Zierahn U. (2017), Revisiting the risk of automation, Economics Letters 159(2017), p COE (2017), Automatisation, numérisation et emploi, Conseil d orientation pour l emploi, Paris. Frey C.B., Osborne M.A. (2013), The future of work: how susceptible are jobs to computerisation?, Oxford University, Working paper of the Programme on the impacts of future technology. De Stefano Valerio (2016), The rise of the just-in-time workforce: on-demand work, crowd work and labour protection in the gig-economy. ILO Conditions of Work and Employment Series #7, Geneva: International Labour Office. Le Ru Nicolas (2016), «Les effets de l automatisation sur l emploi: ce qu on sait et ce qu on ignore», Notes d analyse de France Stratégie, n 49. Valenduc Gérard, Vendramin Patricia (2017), Digitalisation, between disruption and evolution, Transfer European Review of Labour and Research, 23(2), Sage, p Valenduc Gérard (2018), «Les relations controversées entre les technologies numériques et l emploi», Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, De Boeck, à paraître en janvier