17.05.2022Talk: "The end of work: why it won’t happen"

The end of work: why it won’t happen

Talk by Professor  Daniel Oesch | Assistant Professor
Institut des sciences sociales (ISS), LINES - Life course and Social Inequality Research Center, University of Lausanne

Wednesday May 18th 2022, 5.45 - 7.15 at Rämistrasse 69

Abstract

Few days pass without media reports predicting the end of work. Ever more sophisticated robots and artificial intelligence are seen as inexorably replacing human labour. These predictions about technological unemployment are as old as the Industrial Revolutions – and so far labour force statistics have invariably proved them wrong. Our talk explains where the predictions about the end of work went wrong and why technological does not per se reduce the demand for work. Based on labour market data, it then shows what instead has happened to the employment structure of Europe over the last decades. If we wish to anticipate the future of work, jobs and skills, the most promising strategy lies in clearly understanding the present changes in the job structure.

The talk is organized by UZH`s Digital Society Initiative