New technologies: A jobless future or golden age of job creation?
New technologies: A jobless future or golden age of job creation?
The International Labour Organization is the tripartite U.N. agency that promotes Decent Work through employment, social security, labour standards and social dialogue. Its work on skills development is guided by the conceptual framework on Skills to improve productivity, employment growth, and development agreed in 2008 by representatives of Governments, Employers’ Associations and Workers’ Associations. Research, policy advice, and pilot projects and technical cooperation programmes to apply good practices in different circumstances across its 185 member States aims to boost the employability of workers, the productivity and competitiveness of enterprises, and the inclusiveness of economic growth. The ILO Secretariat in offices in 40 countries works with Ministries of Labour, employers’ organizations, and trade unions to integrate skills development into national and sector development strategies in order to better meet current labour market needs and to prepare for the jobs of the future; to expand access to employment-related training so that youth, persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups are better able to acquire skills and secure productive and decent work; and to improve the ability of public employment services to provide career guidance, maintain labour exchange services, and deliver active labour market programmes.For more information regarding the ILO’s work on skills and employability go to: http://www.ilo.org/skills/lang--en/index.htm; for ILO/Cinterfor's Knowledge Management Plarform, see: http://www.oitcinterfor.org
Anticipating and building skills for the future is essential to a rapidly changing labour market. This applies to changes in the types and levels of skills needed as well as in occupational and technical areas. Effective methods to anticipate future skills needs and avoid potential mismatches include: sustained dialogue between employers and trainers, coordination across government institutions, labour market information systems, employment services and performance reviews of training institutions.
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Working papers, reports, and other publications from international organizations, academic institutions and bilateral agencies. Research findings to stimulate informed debate on skills, employment and productivity issues.
Research Department Working Paper No. 13
The new wave of technological innovation is expected to fundamentally change the future of jobs. The debate on the impact on jobs, however, is controversial. Some expect a jobless future, while others argue that history will repeat itself, and new technologies will eventually create new and better jobs.
This research aims at a better understanding of the dynamics of job destruction and job creation. The paper develops a framework to explain the nexus new technology, innovation and job, and the forces driving labour-saving as well as job-creating innovations. Technological change is explained as a nonlinear and complex process which comes in waves and different phases, and market, social and political forces are driving the dynamics of job destruction and job creation.
The paper firstly explains the role of market forces in driving automation and fragmentation as two forms of process innovation that destroy jobs in industrial production regimes. Secondly, markets also create jobs by adjusting to increased productivity and jobs losses. However, due to country-specific social capabilities the net impact on jobs differs significantly across countries. Finally, this paper explains the long-term process of moving towards a golden age of job creation. Such a phase of massive job creation can only be achieved by transformative changes in the economy where radically new products and new growth industries emerge in a process of creative destruction. Such changes cannot be generated by markets, they are a social and political choice. The paper argues that unintended consequences of past technological changes have disruptive effects in societies and natural environment which trigger social debates and movements, societal learning processes, and eventually, new social and political demand and new capabilities. It is this social transformation that propels transformative structural changes in the economy and massive job creation.
This paper concludes that technological change and the future of jobs is not deterministic, but needs to be shaped. Both, market adjustment and societal learning processes drive endogenously the job-creation dynamics. The challenge for public policies is to foster the dynamics of societal learning and economic transformation.
