1. According to a leading business consultancy, 3-14% of the global workforce will need to switch to a different occupation within the next 10-15 years, and all workers will need to continuously adapt as their occupations evolve alongside increasingly sophisticated machines. Automation, also referred to as ‘embodied artificial intelligence’ (AI), represents one facet of the technological disruption impacting labor markets. ‘Disembodied AI,’ exemplified by the algorithms operating in our smartphones, is another.
2. Algorithms now possess the ability to analyze data and perform tasks previously reliant on human judgment. ‘In many cases, they can surpass human performance,’ says Pachidi. ‘Organisations are attracted to using algorithms to make decisions based on what they consider “perfect information” while simultaneously reducing costs and enhancing productivity.’
3. Economist Professor Hamish Low contends that the future of work over a lifetime will undergo radical changes. ‘The traditional trajectory of full-time education followed by full-time work and a pensioned retirement is becoming obsolete,’ says Low. Instead, he envisages a multistage employment life, where workers engage in retraining across the life course and move between periods of multiple jobs and voluntary unemployment.
4. On the subject of job losses, Low believes the predictions are founded on a fallacy: ‘It assumes that the number of jobs is fixed. If in 30 years, half of 100 jobs are being carried out by robots, that doesn’t mean we are left with just 50 jobs for humans. The number of jobs will increase: we would expect there to be 150 jobs.’
5. Dr Ewan McGaughey, at Cambridge’s Centre for Business Research and King’s College London, agrees that ‘apocalyptic’ views about the future of work are misguided. ‘It’s the laws that restrict the supply of capital to the job market, not the advent of new technologies that causes unemployment.’
6. His recently published research answers the question of whether automation, AI and robotics will mean a ‘jobless future’ by looking at the causes of unemployment. ‘History is clear that change can mean redundancy. But social policies can tackle this through retraining and redeployment.’ He adds: ‘If there is going to be change to jobs as a result of AI and robotics then I’d like to see governments seizing the opportunity to improve policy to enforce good job security. We can “reprogramme” the law to prepare for a fairer future of work and leisure.’ McGaughey’s findings are a call to arms to leaders of organisations, governments and banks to pre-empt the coming changes with bold new policies that guarantee full employment, fair incomes and a thriving economic democracy.