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It’s time for a new deal for workers

Azeem Azhar: founder, Exponential View

The pandemic has highlighted the need for new thinking on workers’ rights

Employment law should be updated to reflect new, technology-enabled styles of

working

In the middle of the last decade, forecasters predicted a grim future for workers. They
promised that automation in the office and robots on the factory floor might
permanently destroy millions of jobs. In 2016 one respected analyst predicted that one
in six American jobs would be lost by 2025. Yet just before the coronavirus rampaged
through the global economy, the oecd, a club of mostly rich nations, was reporting
record levels of employment among its member countries.

Instead it was the pandemic, not robots or smart software, that caused tens of millions
of job losses, and for rather conventional reasons: recession, a decline in consumer
spending and companies going out of business. Firms that had invested in advanced
technologies, far from laying people off, went on a hiring spree. Amazon, renowned for
its cutting-edge acumen, recruited an additional 175,000 people as lockdowns began in
March 2020. Netflix, a technology-driven media company, continued to hire throughout