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Technological progress is currently destabilizing and undermining the labor force in several aspects.

The purpose of this website is to attempt to better fathom the disruptions at stake and to understand which solutions or opportunities can be provided in order to rethink the way labor is organized.

 

The future of technical progress is open to debate. Its consequences on our jobs, and more globally on the way our societies are built, is also uncertain. E. Bryniolfsson and A. McAfee are quite optimistic about it and assert that technology is about to take off. In The Second Machine Age, they also remind that this tendency might leave some people and organisations behind. R. Gordon is less enthusiastic and introduces a thesis about Secular Stagnation, or how technical progress is destined to slow down.

 

Entering into the Second Machine Age entails many disturbing consequences on the labor force distribution. Since middle-jobs are highly threatened by computerization and automation, our society is about to face the alarming phenomenon of job polarization. High-skilled and low-skilled jobs would be relatively spared. However, the middle-level skilled workers represent the absolute majority of developed countries’ labor force. This raises interrogations not only about how to provide them with new jobs but also about how the work in general should be organized in the future. The solutions provided by the authors in their recent theories are very heterogeneous: it ranges from the abolition of work to the gradual reform of the welfare state.

 

Our website aims at providing keys to grasp the stakes behind technical progress and employment. Through the analysis of relevant articles and videos, illustrated by self-made infographics, our website will give you an overview of what the work society could look like in the next decades. You will also find some policy recommendations for the future.