What will happen to the jobs? Technology-enabled productivity improvement – good for some, bad for others

ABSTRACT

The article looks at the literature as relates to technology-driven shifts in employment with a specific emphasis on digital technologies. The article looks at both the arguments for a positive outcome and for a negative outcome.

The article concludes that there are probably more jobs going to be created than is presented in popular media but that this will be taking place simultaneously with a sharp polarisation of the workforce and an increased uneven global distribution of the jobs created.

The key contribution of this paper is that whether the future becomes one of job scarcity and precariasation or one of job abundance and multi-dimensional wealth (economic, environmental, quality of life) cannot be left to the market but is instead a function of the socio-political choices we and our policy-makers make.

KEYWORDS:

• Technology-enabled productivity improvement
• job elimination
• job transformation
• job externalisation
• job creation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Aldus Manutius (1449–1515) created a printer’s mark (see below) for his printing and publishing business (Aldine Press in Venice). This printers mark was an adoption of the Dolphin and the Anchor symbol (from a gold coin issued under the reins of the emperor Titus Flavius Vespasianus 39 AD–81 AD depicting this symbol [see below]) with the meaning ‘σπεῦδε βραδέως’ in classic Greek translated into the Latin ‘Festina Lente’ or in English ‘make haste slowly’. This quote is Saffo’s interpretation and repositioning of the original meaning of the symbol in today’s setting.

2. See for example Hofmann (2015), Avila and Bailey (2016) in combination with https://www.nextrembrandt.com/; Kaliakatsos-Papakostas Floros and Vrahatis (2016) and Zhang and Yu (2016).

3. Depending on the country (e.g. see Bowles 2014).

4. Platforms are defined by De Smet et al. (2016) as software layers that gather and synthesise large volumes of data to make digital services available and accessible on various devices. They help define the rules and the way work gets done, while better coordinating activities and lowering interaction costs.

5. Varying from 5.40% in professional services, 3.90% in high tech, 2.55% in banking, 2.30% in hospitals and 1.20% in manufacturing to 1.10% in retail.

6. A MUD (originally Multi-User Dungeon, with later variants Multi-User Dimension and Multi-User Domain) (Hahn 1996; Bartle 2004) is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, usually text based. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat. Players can read or view descriptions of rooms, objects, other players, non-player characters and actions performed in the virtual world. Players typically interact with each other and the world by typing commands that resemble a natural language.

7. MOO (MUD, object oriented) (Shah and Romine 1995; Taylor 2006) is a text-based online virtual reality system to which multiple users (players) are connected at the same time.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Göran Roos

Göran Roos is a member of the Economic Development Board of South Australia, the advisory board for Investment Attraction South Australia, METS Ignited Australia Limited’s Innovation Advisory Council (MIAC), an Invited Chair of CSIRO Manufacturing Business Unit Advisory Committee and a strategic Advisor to Defence SA and the Defence SA Advisory Board. He is a Stretton Fellow appointed by the City of Playford at University of Adelaide; Adjunct Professor at University of Technology Sydney Business School. Göran is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) and of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA).

Zara Shroff

Zara Shroff is an economist working in the office of the Economic Development Board of South Australia at the Department of Premier and Cabinet. Zara graduated with a double degree and honours in economics from the University of Adelaide.