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THE DIGITAL AGENDA
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As technology progresses, computers and
robots will become capable of performing more
and more tasks, more quickly, with greater pre-
cision and at lower cost; as a result, companies
will be able to manufacture goods and provide
services with a smaller workforce.
Although technological progress causes so-
ciety as a whole to advance and generates con-
siderable added value for consumers, it may
exclude many people from the labour market.
Some evidence of this may be found by observ-
ing the evolution of office working spaces
(where administrative or accounting tasks are
performed), car factories or distribution and lo-
gistics warehouses. In a relatively short time,
technology has dramatically changed the way in
which we perform basic workplace functions.
Thirty or forty years ago, offices were full of
busy staff typing, filing, handling goods and or-
ders, carrying papers from one place to another,
queueing in the canteen or waiting to clock on
or clock off at the beginning or end of the work-
ing day. Today, just a fraction of these employ-
ees remains, and the majority of these tasks are
performed by machine or by computer.
We are talking about millions of jobs that
have evaporated: the jobs of middle class peo-
ple and their families that are the backbone of
European societies. With this precedent and in
view of the huge progress in automation and
robotics of recent decades, the digital revolution
inevitably places a major question mark against
the whole issue of employment.
In 2014, the Pew Research Center asked a
panel of 1,896 experts if they thought artificial
intelligence would destroy more jobs than it
would create over the coming decade. It is inter-
esting to note that the responses – from people
ranging from senior managers at Google to sci-
entists at MIT – were inconclusive, and the
group divided more or less down the middle.
At President Obama’s suggestion, the White
House’s Council of Economic Advisors present-
ed a study of the impact of robotics on the US
workforce. The significance of their conclusions
should not be underestimated. Breaking em-
ployment down into three groups based on me-
dian hourly wage (correlated primarily with the
level of skills or qualification required), the
worst-paid jobs had a median probability of au-
tomation of 0.83. These are jobs with a high
level of routine processes: manufacturing, trans-
port or logistics, public service, cashiers, shop
staff etc. The medium and high-paid groups had
values of 0.31 and 0.04, respectively. Put simply,
according to this study there is an 83 per cent
probability that a low-paid job in the United
States will be automated. This means that 62
per cent of all the jobs that currently exist in the
United States will be threatened by the digital
revolution. This is too many jobs to ignore.
There have been plenty of studies into this issue
that draw broadly similar conclusions, pointing
towards automation threatening between 40
and 60 per cent of jobs.
Other more “techno-optimistic” studies em-
phasise the millions of highly paid, creative jobs
that could be generated as a result of the adop-
tion of new technologies. Which scenario will
turn out to be correct? What will be the net
long-term effect of these tectonic shifts in the
structure of the labour market? Will the jobs
that are currently being destroyed or that will be
destroyed in the future by the adoption of new
technologies be replaced by employment in the
creation, design, operation and supervision of
these same technologies?
It is very possible that some of the negative
impact on employment and the sustained in-
crease in productivity will be offset in the same
way that they were during the 20th century:
through reductions in the working week, the