Work will change, but won’t disa

Technology and innovation may be ‘‘overhyped’’ according to the director of the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute, Jim Stanford.

As we grapple with the advent of technological change – with developments in areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, the Internet of Things coming apace – it is easy to conclude that the workplace of the future will be unrecognisable from that of the present.

But Stanford is not convinced that is the case.

‘‘Sure, there are some incredible devices, some incredible technology, that will affect how we work, but we’ve experienced continual technological change for the last 200 years,’’ he says.

‘‘Regularly there have been predictions that work is going to disappear because of technology, and our biggest problem will be working out what to do with all our leisure time. That doesn’t ever seem to pan out.

‘‘In the real world, there’s more obstacles to technology replacing labour than we give credit for.’’

A highly influential 2013 study by the Oxford Martin School (a research and policy unit based in the Social Sciences Division of Oxford University) predicted that 47 per cent of all jobs could be automated by 2033 – a study whose fame is unfortunate, in Stanford’s eyes.

‘‘That’s nonsense, it won’t happen. There are certain jobs and occupations that will be turned upside down by technology, but we humans have a tendency to believe that just because something can happen, it will become widespread. That is not necessarily the case.’’

A good example is the driverless vehicle, he says. ‘‘We can do it, in a controlled environment, the technology is there – but in order to make it happen everywhere around us, there are going to be huge challenges in infrastructure, communications and regulation, in public acceptance, in capital investment. Just because these things can be done by engineers in controlled environments, it doesn’t mean they are going to become widespread.’’

The other thing that we tend to forget, he says, is that technological advancements often create as many jobs as they remove. ‘‘If we look at history there have been previous periods of very wide-ranging technological change that didn’t necessarily cause mass unemployment.

Artificial intelligence is expanding, but jobs will continue to be created in areas such as human and caring services.

‘‘If the technologies tend to spur stronger business investment, then you have a chance of growing jobs from them. All of these technologies have got new work associated with them – yes, they do displace some jobs, but they create other jobs, jobs that are required to operate, develop, manufacture and maintain the new machinery, that involve doing things that weren’t possible before the machinery was invented.’’

Stanford says it is too easy for people to conclude that there are relatively unskilled tasks – which will be automated away – and skilled tasks, which will not. ‘‘There isn’t a perfect correlation between the level of skills in your job and whether or not you can be replaced by a machine. There is a kind of shorthand that says, ‘if you’ve got skills you’re going to be safe,’ but I’d be very cautious about assuming that.’’

There are many low-skilled jobs that will remain safe, he says. ‘‘That includes so-called lower-skilled jobs in private services – like cleaning and hospitality work – and also in a lot of the hands-on work that is required in those human services like healthcare.

‘‘But by the same token, there’s a lot of traditionally higher-knowledge, higher-status jobs where the risks of automation are quite severe – for example, lawyers, accountants, engineers and geologists.’’

Where jobs will continue to be created, he says, is in areas that are more service-oriented: in particular, public services – human and caring services – such as healthcare and social services, education and public administration.

‘‘Those areas are growing as a share of total work. Where jobs have been created in the last five years – and the forecasts of where they’re going to be created in the next five years – public services are very disproportionately important. In fact, about half of all jobs in the next five years will be public services. That suggests that as society both ages and gets richer, people are going to want more of those types of services,’’ says Stanford.

Most work in society will still be doing the ‘‘traditional, hands-on, mundane’’ things that society needs – and will continue to need, he says. ‘‘Instead of viewing that as a drain or a cost, we should celebrate it, and recognise that this type of work is producing the things that people want, and then value it accordingly.’’

Nor is Stanford a big believer in the ‘‘gig economy’’. Where it is available, he says some people do prefer the flexibility and the autonomy – but too often, that is in the context of a world where it is very hard to find a traditional job.

But for most people, that is ‘‘an incredibly insecure way of trying to support yourself’’, he says. ‘‘I think young people are interested in full-time jobs. They want to have a mortgage and a house and a family one day. They know full well that you can’t do that on a series of gigs.’’

Nor, he suggests, will we all be working from home, or from coffee shops. ‘‘Again, the technology gives us far greater flexibility than we have ever had, but ironically, in the real world, people value face-to-face contact and networking – perhaps more than ever,’’ says Stanford.

‘‘If you could do your job from anywhere, why on earth would a business pay Sydney or Melbourne prices for real estate, in order to establish there? They do so because proximity actually does matter, in all kinds of ways, including face-to-face contact in business services and public services,’’ he says.

‘‘Unless someone has a very unique skill and a very high reputation, an employer doesn’t want to just pay you to sit at home. They actually want to see that you’re part of a team, that you’re doing what they want you to be doing. Again, I don’t see a whole lot of change in the way that we have to physically go to work, as part of our lives,’’ Stanford says.