The Future of Work and Education: Three Scenarios
By Irving Wladawsky-Berger
“Experts differ widely in their predictions about how technological innovation will change the labor market, but they all see a need for changes in education,” write British professors and Phillip Brown in a recently published article, Rethinking the Race Between Education and Technology. While experts don’t generally agree on much, hey’re pretty much of one mind when it comes to the growing importance of skills and education in our 21st century digital economy.
Every past technological transformation ultimately led to more jobs, higher living standards and economic growth. But, as a number of recent studies concluded, to ensure that this will indeed be the case, our emerging knowledge economy should be accompanied by the expansion of educational opportunities for everyone.
While noting that this is the most likely scenario for the next 10–15 years, Keep and Brown also consider two potential longer-term scenarios. Perhaps AI will lead to even more pervasive and fundamental transformations in the nature of work, making it difficult for even those with a college or higher education to find a good job. Beyond that, some have suggested that in the more distant future we might see an even more radical, science-fiction-like transformation: the end of work as we’ve long known it.
The authors argue that considering such a spectrum of possibilities will help us better prepare for what’s essentially an unpredictable future. In that spirit, their paper discusses three different labor market scenarios: labor scarcity, job scarcity, and the end of work.
Labor Scarcity
“Supporters of this scenario expect that as in the past, new positions and professions will emerge and create new jobs to replace any eliminated by new technology. Although there may be a challenging period of transition, especially for those displaced by automation, technological innovation will require new skills and create employment opportunities.”
Investments in the skills required to meet these technology and workforce challenges are the key source of individual opportunity, social mobility, and economic welfare. This is especially important for workers without a four-year college degree who’ve disproportionately borne the brunt of automation. Post-secondary education and training venues— e.g., community colleges, apprenticeships, online education, industry-specific training programs— are likely to be most relevant and accessible to these workers.
However, existing education and training programs won’t be enough given the demands for life-long adult learning.
“What makes these arguments consistent is the idea of a race between technology and education to develop more advanced skills if people are to remain employable in tomorrow’s labor market. The fundamental challenge remains the reform of education systems to prepare the future workforce to take advantage of new opportunities emerging within a technologically advanced economy…People will need to adapt continuously and learn new skills and approaches within a variety of contexts.”
In addition, new skills will be required to keep up with the increased digitalization of the economy. The article references the Essential Digital Skills Framework , a tool developed by the U.K. Government that defines the skills needed to benefit from, participate in, and contribute to the digital world. The framework includes five categories of skills: communicating, collaborating and sharing online; handling information and content securely; buying, selling and managing transactions; finding solutions to problems using digital tools; and being safe and legal online.
Job Scarcity
Automation fears have understandably accelerated in recent years, as our increasingly smart machines are now being applied to activities requiring intelligence and cognitive capabilities that not long ago were viewed as the exclusive domain of humans. Previous technological innovation always delivered more long-run employment, but things can change. As a 2014 Economist article noted, while the majority of economists wave such worries away, some now fear that a new era of automation enabled by ever more powerful and capable computers could work out differently.
“The job scarcity view recognizes that new technologies may enhance the skills of a relatively small proportion of the workforce, but the general direction of technological innovation is toward the redesign of existing jobs.” In that world, “much of the knowledge content is captured in software that permits a high level of standardization and potential to deskill or automate a wide range of occupations, including technical, professional, and managerial roles.”
This scenario reminds me of Software is Eating the World , a 2011 essay by Marc Andreessen, which predicted that software was poised to take over large swathes of the economy. Entrepreneurial companies all over the world are disrupting established industries with innovative AI-driven software solutions. An increasing number of businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services.
“Job scarcity points to a significant mismatch between an expanding supply of educated and skilled workers and a scarcity of high-quality job opportunities, primarily resulting from the routinization and segmentation of job roles rather than technological unemployment.”
A relatively small number of highly skilled, educated professionals and managers will develop the necessary algorithms, digital systems and business models, while a much larger number of less skilled workers will be needed to implement the procedures and managerial tasks which have been captured in algorithms and software.
The End of Work
In a 1930 essay, English economist John Maynard Keynes wrote about the onset of “a new disease” which he named technological unemployment, that is, “unemployment due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.” Keynes predicted that the standard of living in advanced economies would be so much higher by 2030 that “for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem — how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure,” and most people would be working a 15-hour week or so, which would satisfy their need to work in order to feel useful and contended.
Such an end-of-work scenario assumes that decades from now, most economic activity will be handled by super-smart machines developed and supervised by small groups of highly skilled professional and technical workers.” It would represent a profound dislocation for the education and training system… where for the past three decades or more the focus has been on the role of education in equipping individuals to perform effectively in a changing labor market.” Instead, the aim of education “would be to help people gain the skills to live fulfilling lives, with the judgment and knowledge to be capable of addressing the complex problems that humanity will face.”
“All three theories acknowledge rapid technological change, even if there is disagreement about its impact on labor demand and job quality,” write the authors in conclusion.”
They all acknowledge the need for digital skills and an even greater focus on social skills. These skills are seen to be more important because people will need to be flexible and adaptable within rapidly changing labor markets and work contexts.
Moreover, although the technical and knowledge requirements of what people do for a living may change, the social context in which people interact, network, and produce will remain, and social skills are more difficult for smart machines to develop.” Finally, “all three theories see a need for educational reform and a greater focus on lifelong learning.”
Originally published at https://blog.irvingwb.com.
