The upheaval of work that we are witnessing is unprecedented in human history. It's as if the invention of printing, the steam engine and electricity, which revolutionized the economy and social relations in 400 years, had taken place in a single decade.
This is the challenge facing us all - governments, companies, trade unions, administrations, associations, the media and civil society as a whole: do we join forces to transform the movement into economic, social and ecological progress, or let ourselves be swept away by a tsunami that would generate chaos and leave many people by the wayside?
Globally, a billion jobs will be created, destroyed or radically transformed over the next ten years. In our developed economies, depending on the research organization, this represents between 50 and 80% of jobs. Even if the quantitative balance will probably be positive in the end, the speed and scale of the transformation to be carried out are formidable.
The first wave of change is unquestionably artificial intelligence.
In the broadest sense, the new digital transformation ("classical" and generative artificial intelligence, big data, cybersecurity, metavers, automation...) will change a large proportion of activities, value chains and working relationships.
Classic" AI (of which ChatGPT is only a first draft) aims to automate tasks, but also generate data to make more informed decisions. Logical" repetitive, analytical and transactional tasks can be automated to become faster, more reliable and better informed. This applies particularly to white-collar workers, and less so to blue-collar workers, who have already undergone a major wave of automation and offshoring since the 1980s. Tasks such as accounting, legal analysis, recruitment, security, administrative public services, customer relations, flow and stock management, radiology and medical diagnostics, analysis and synthesis, decision support tools, etc., will be largely replaced or improved by AI. Research is set to expand considerably, particularly in the medical field, where instant access to billions of data points to major advances in the detection, prevention and treatment of cancers and neurodegenerative diseases. Crafts and manual trades should be the least affected.
Furthermore, the correction of sexist and racist biases in algorithms (since they reproduce data from the past), their transparency and their democratic control are major political issues, to which Europe is the first to attempt to provide answers.
Generative AI, whose first applications are beginning to appear, will create totally new content, imitating what it has observed in the data it has been injected with to create something new.This directly concerns the fields of artistic creation, media, advertising, design and fashion, with formidable questions about ethics, copyright, transparency and democratic control of algorithms, and more generally the philosophical and technical frontier between human and machine. How will we know who wrote what book or article - a man or a machine? Who will be responsible for any excesses? Which of man and AI will be the master, and which the servant? Will cooperation dominate? Finance is a very useful servant for man, but we've turned it into a master. What will happen with AI? To what extent will work be replaced, improved, degraded or augmented?
Two social consequences of the generalization of AI are still underestimated, and call for a new national and international social dialogue: firstly, since white-collar workers are the most affected, and their tasks have been transformed, there is nothing to prevent a major relocation of their jobs, as blue-collar workers have experienced in recent decades. How can we prevent and tackle this issue?
Furthermore, the social and ethical conditions under which AI is "trained" require supervision. Tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of "click workers" in South-East Asia and Africa, often teenagers paid a dollar a day, "feed" AI with data and correct its micro-behaviors to "educate" it. How can we regulate these new, unequal value chains?
From an ecological point of view, digital technology, and AI in particular, which manipulates billions of pieces of data worldwide, is a major energy consumer. The impact of the virtual world is largely underestimated, and must be taken into account in decarbonization trajectories.
The second groundswell is the necessary ecological transition, which will also change jobs, skills and sometimes their location in a wide range of fields: agriculture, agri-food, industry, energy, construction, transport, water resource management, waste management, services...
It poses three social challenges. First, access to electricity, heating, energy, and water at acceptable costs for the entire population. We saw this at the time of the "yellow vests" movement, whose trigger -even though it revealed nearly thirty years of relegation of rural and peri-urban areas and a decline in the relative purchasing power of modest workers- was an ecological tax on gasoline. We're experiencing this again with the sharp rise in energy costs following Russia's war with Ukraine;
Secondly, the cost of the energy transition. The anger of small farmers is particularly representative: the accumulation of environmental standards and the ban on the use of pesticides is undermining an already fragile economic model based on intensive production.
Thirdly, the skills revolution. How, on a large scale, can coal or oil workers become nuclear maintenance technicians or solar panel installers? What's more, the location of these jobs is often different. How can we support these professional and geographical changes?
Artificial intelligence and the ecological transition are going to require an extraordinary revolution in skills, which is starting today and will take off in the coming years. The Prime Minister of Singapore has estimated that for his country, this would represent the equivalent of 120 days of training per year per employee! In 1987, the OECD estimated that the professional skills acquired in initial training were valid for an average of thirty years, with a few adaptations for the rest of one's career. The same study considers that these skills are now valid for an average of...two years. And more like eight months in tech. The act of learning will no longer precede activity; it will have to be intrinsically integrated into work processes, which will revolutionize education and transmission processes. Both public and private organizations are called upon to become "learning" and cooperative.
That's why, back in 2018, on behalf of the government, with the support of the President of theRepublic and Parliament, I carried the law "Pour la liberté de choisir son avenir professionnel" ("For the freedom to choose one's professional future"), which transformed apprenticeship and lifelong training for all. Our reform has enabled apprenticeships to take off, providing the best opportunity for young people to enter the world of work and develop their skills: 420,000 apprentices in 2017, more than a million by 2023.
The opening of the euro-denominated Compte Personnel deFormation (CPF) to 25 million French people has already begun to change the game, to give everyone power over their professional lives: 7 million employees and self-employed people have already used it to boost their employability, obtain a promotion or change profession. Of these, 80% are blue-collar and white-collar workers, 50% are women and 20% are seniors, i.e. all those who previously had little or no access to training leading to qualifications. The French have clearly understood the importance of skills for their future. Raising skills levels is essential to our competitiveness, at a time when France is ranked 25th in the OECD for the level of general skills among its working population, which is in sharp decline. Social advancement is only possible by raising everyone's skills, at a time when the social elevator has broken down: according to the OECD, it now takes 6 generations in France to rise out of extreme poverty and reach the median wage.
Unfortunately, consistency in the policies pursued, even those that are successful, is not our country's strong suit. Let's hope that the budgetary measures and administrative complexities recently introduced by the government will not break the momentum of apprenticeships, the CPF and the skills investment plan. In a rapidly changing world, the battle for skills has only just begun.
The third fundamental change is the massive demographic shift taking place now and in the future, which will upset the balance between the very young Global South and the aging Global North.
Onein two Africans is under twenty. The average age in India, with its 1.4 billion inhabitants, is 27. This can represent for these countries a considerable asset in terms of domestic market and a remarkable source of entrepreneurial energy, or else a dangerous burden socially if the response is not up to the massive educational needs, for girls as well as boys. Failing this, a surge in migration will be inevitable.
In Europe, 21% of the population is over 65. North America, Russia, China and Japan are all experiencing the same aging of their populations, due to the dual effect of a falling birth rate and longer life expectancy. By 2040, there will be 5.2 million people over 70 in France (INSEE). In other words, the labor shortages already visible will become more acute, and the need for jobs in the care industry (care and social support) will be booming, raising formidable questions about training, salaries and funding to ensure that services are accessible to all.
In terms of migration, the imbalance between labor shortages in the North and population growth in the South will intensify movements and tensions, whether governments like it or not. The key issue will be integration.
In the BRICs and developing countries, the reality is mixed. Globalization has given hundreds of millions of workers access to "formal" employment and lifted them out of poverty. But international social standards are rarely part of the negotiating conditions for trade agreements, and are largely unenforced in some countries. The international division of labor leaves out a significant proportion of the population.
Informal" workers, with virtually no rights, no social protection and no decent working conditions, number two billion, or 60% of the world's working population, the majority of whom are women. And let's not forget the tragic situation of Afghan and Iranian women, whose basic rights and freedoms have been destroyed by the authoritarian and theocratic governments of their countries, including the right to education and work. Another unsustainable figure: the ILO estimates that 160 million children are forced to work and have no access to school. Some situations are akin to forced labor or "modern slavery", such as among Uyghurs or domestic workers in Southeast Asia. The future of work must involve the economic emancipation of women and an end to child labor.
The fourth major trend is clearly the changing relationship with work.
Already quietly perceptible before the COVID crisis, the phenomenon has irreversibly changed scale with confinements, large-scale telecommuting, and the sharp drop in the unemployment rate in France thanks to our reforms.This evolution, initiated by part of the youth, now crosses all generations and social categories internationally. The subject of the relationship to work crystallizes six key questions:
- What is the meaning of work in a company or any other organization, its raison d'être, its purpose for society? Recruitment difficulties are getting much worse for the most polluting companies and those that "cheat" on ESG (environment, social, governance) if they turn out to be practicing green washing or social washing. The coherence of a company's raison d'être with its ecosystem management practices, in terms of both territory and subcontracting, are scrutinized and analyzed.
- What is the meaning of everyone's work: is it useful, its value perceived and its impact recognized? How much autonomy and room for manoeuvre is there to improve it? Or is it a " bullshit job ", a mere cog in a machine without a compass, lost in processes, matrix organizations, incessant meetings and reporting ? Are working conditions conducive to quality work, a source of pleasure, recognition and pride? Despite the difficulties and risks in terms of social protection, many people choose to become self-employed or auto-entrepreneurs to rediscover meaning and autonomy.
- How do you strike a balance between work and personal life, on a day-to-day basis and at different stages of life? This has become a major expectation, upsetting the once central place of work in our existence. Since the COVID crisis, which led everyone to question what was most important to them, and with nuances depending on the country, the development of "quiet quiting" and "grand resignation" (less visible in France), are strong signs of this. Even if work remains for most a key element of social identity and success, almost half of all employees now prefer to have more time than more money, either for family reasons (children, support as a carer for an elderly or sick relative), or to pursue other passions and commitments (sport, art, travel, solidarity...), or out of a choice for a less stressful day-to-day life.
- The expectation of sincere, motivating and benevolent relations, whether in the attitude of managers or between colleagues, has become more demanding: the adage "you join a company, you leave a manager" is not new, but this expectation of the company has increased tenfold as social bonds are disintegrating in society and aggressiveness is increasing on social networks. To "get on board" with their teams, managers now need to be inspiring, fair and positive, rather than authoritarian, brutal or manipulative. From "little boss" to " coach". Much remains to be done...
- The widespread use of "hybrid" face-to-face/telecommuting work has become unavoidable for 40% of jobs where the nature of the activity allows it. Companies are still struggling to reconcile the advantages of telecommuting (greater individual productivity, concentration, lower real-estate costs) with its disadvantages (loss of social ties, reduced collective creativity), which require teams to spend time together. A major risk is emerging: recreating a division of labor between "white-collar" workers, who can telework and enjoy a chosen flexibility, and "blue-collar" workers, who are on the front line, in a constrained time and place, for lower wages and with longer commuting times. The demand for chosen working hours is growing in all social categories.
- The issue of inclusion and diversity may seem secondary, or not the responsibility of companies. This is not the case. There can be no individual success without collective success, at the level of a company, a community or society as a whole. Inequality between men and women in the workplace, gender-based violence, racism in hiring and in the workplace, exclusion of young people and senior citizens, not to mention the rejection of people with disabilities and health problems, and disregard for local communities, all point to an absurd world in which a tiny minority are held up as role models, and are the only ones to enjoy a career without a glass ceiling. In recent years, social standards have made progress on all these issues, particularly in Europe, and will the labor shortage faced by all OECD countries be a lever for progress? We can only hope so.
This won't happen by revolutionizing mentalities. We need to "open our shakras ", "change our software": diversity and inclusion for all are not only a necessity for social cohesion and regional management, they are also an opportunity, a lever for performance and creativity. This has already been demonstrated for gender equality, which is a factor in growth, innovation and resilience. On this subject, France is recognized as a legislative leader, with the trilogy of Copé-Zimermann and Rixain laws, and the one I championed. More broadly speaking, diversity rhymes with success, cooperation with innovation. It's not a question of reducing everyone to their origins as a "problem" or an "essentiality", but of rebuilding empathy, living together, creating society, and freeing collective initiative.
This is the journey I invite you to embark upon in my book " Engaged" (Éditions Alpha-Humensis), a testimony to my experience as a minister, corporate executive, diplomat and community leader, and above all, as a citizen committed to working with and for others to build our common good together. "There's only one Earth, you only live once" said Antoine Riboud in 1972. There is only one Humanity. All of us, after many others, before the generations to come, bear the responsibility of shaping the future of work.
So let's get involved, together!
Muriel Pénicaud
