the pandemic. Academic evidence on whether artificial intelligence and industrial
robots hurt employment remains inconclusive. Predictions of the number of jobs at risk
have declined, and in some cases gone negative. A recent European Commission paper
suggested that “robot adoption tends to be positively associated with aggregate
employment”, and a study by Leslie Willocks, an economist at the London School of
Economics, reached a similar conclusion.
Even if robots have yet to take all the jobs, technology is fundamentally reshaping the
nature of work in other ways, as firms rethink their businesses after the pandemic.
There will be new skills to learn, new responsibilities to master and new models of
remote and hybrid working. Employees will be forced to adapt. Such constant change
will be unsettling. Not everyone relishes working in an environment where what they
do, who they work with and the skills they need change regularly. Firms that do not
adopt these new, technology-enabled ways of working risk going the way of Blockbuster,
Kodak or BlackBerry.
Companies may be tempted to use the rupture provided by the pandemic to adopt new
labour practices. They may, for example, place greater reliance on gig-work platforms,
paying workers for specific tasks or projects, rather than employing them. For firms, the
benefit is clear: a contractor comes and does the job without being a lingering payroll
liability. Though some workers appreciate and benefit from the flexibility that gig
working offers, it does not afford the economic security or personal-development
opportunities of a full-time job.
Ensuring that technology-driven change benefits workers as well as companies will
require new thinking from employers. The good news is that there are signs of progress.
Many large firms are investing in re-skilling their workforces for the future. In 2020
PWC, a consultancy, announced that it would invest $3bn to re-train its 275,000
employees. IBM, a computer giant, has promised $1bn for re-training its workforce.
Amazon has committed $700m. More firms will follow suit.
Smaller entrepreneurial outfits are dealing with workers’ emerging needs. Lambda
School, based in Silicon Valley, trains software developers, and defers its fees until
graduates have found jobs paying more than $50,000 a year. Portify helps freelance
workers, whose earnings may not be backed by a giant industrial conglomerate, build
up their credit ratings. Firms like Hustle and Zego provide gig workers with affordable
insurance while they are on the job; Collective Benefits helps gig workers with holiday
pay and sick leave.
Policymakers need to act, too. As gig-working has already shown, employment law
should be updated to reflect the shifting rights and responsibilities associated with new,
technology-enabled styles of working. Although the threat of a robot-job apocalypse
seems to have been postponed, workers can still find themselves on the wrong end of
technological change. Devising a new and fairer settlement requires further innovation.