Don’t be afraid of the "Future of work"!
When we talk about “the future of work”, it is often in negative terms: precariousness, unemployment, dependence and alienation. There’s no doubt that we are experiencing a turning point in terms of work, but are we doomed to a hopeless future?
Two major phenomena are transforming the work world: automation with robotization and artificial intelligence, and the development of a new type of independent work. For the pessimists, we should fear a world without work or without security and stability. In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth.
First of all, companies never had to look harder for job candidates – the French, but even more the Belgian and German markets, for example, are strained to such an extent that the “candidate” is king. Actors in the German temporary work market told me recently that they were eagerly awaiting refugees to be regularized in order to gain access to a new population of workers.
Secondly, history teaches us some useful lessons. At various points in time, it was thought that machines would destroy jobs. Remember the revolt of the Jacquards in France and the Luddites in England, which destroyed weaving machines? There has always been a “spillover” of employment from one sector to another. 150 years ago, 90% of the French population was made up of peasants. Today, only 2% of farmers remain. And yet the activity rate has increased!
Should we lament a fantasized “lost paradise”? All you have to do is reread Zola's writings on department stores, mines or factories, or do the genealogy of her family to realize that our ancestors died younger, worked harder and were more alienated at work than we are.
“But this time is different,” some say. Technology will enslave us and make humans obsolete.
Robots have certainly made extraordinary progress since the looms of the industrial revolution. But it’s inconceivable that robots can completely replace humans today. Elon Musk, for example, who built the most automated car factory in the industry to produce his new Tesla 3 had to quickly return to using more humans. In this surprising tweet, he admits going too far: “Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake, my mistake. Human beings are undervalued.” Since then, the Tesla 3 has been manually made in the parking lot of the unused factory!
Robots are already in our factories performing dangerous, complicated and repetitive tasks. We should be happy about this since they free workers from these responsibilities. But they can’t do everything. If the robots at Boston Dynamics manage to reproduce a back flip, the fact remains that replacing humans in many, very simple jobs is far from easy, even less profitable.
The same is true for artificial intelligence. In the opinion of Yann Le Cun himself, Director of Facebook’s Artificial Intelligence Lab, AI is far from being able to model human intelligence. AI increases and transforms the work of doctors, salespeople and lawyers, but it doesn’t replace it. To prove this point, it’s enough to observe the thousands of moderators hired by Facebook to qualify content instead of AI for tasks that are in theory quite simple! Let’s hope that tomorrow AI can free white-collar workers from tedious tasks like robots did for blue-collar workers in factories.
The second major phenomenon that is shaking up our concept of work is the development of a new type of self-employment. We weren’t worried about instability for doctors, lawyers, notaries or accountants. So why worry about the supposed insecurity of hundreds of thousands of developers, graphic designers and project managers who choose to become freelancers today?
Obviously not everything is a bed of roses for freelancers, and this type of work isn’t for everyone and probably never will be. But the Freelancing in Europe study that we have conducted last year across Europe shows that 77% of freelancers are freelancers “by choice” and not “by default”. In France this number is even close to 90% and we expect it to be similar for Germany. They don’t want to return to traditional employment.
Of course, some new freelancers - drivers or bicycle delivery workers - may be in a situation of greater dependence. There are probably safeguards and new types of protection that need to be invented. However, the majority of them prefer their current situation to that of unemployment, inactivity or even earning minimum wage with restricted schedules. They often use these new forms of work as a springboard or a learning experience that state education hasn’t necessarily offered them.
Although they have different models and cover different sectors, platforms for freelancers all have one thing in common: they connect supply and demand that previously could not be met. Before, all freelancers had to have a good network, know how to sell, invoice, collect their invoices, etc. or go through opaque and expensive intermediaries. What we are most proud of at Malt, the company I co-founded, is our ability to liberate the best freelancers’ talent. The Malt community can access a wider world of potential customers, choose their missions, develop their reputation, no longer worry about payments and be insured. This freedom was formerly reserved for only a privileged few.
A UX designer search results page on Malt Germany.
Maybe as an entrepreneur I can only be optimistic. I am well aware of the limits of the current work world, of its burnouts, boreouts and bullshit jobs ... but I think it would be a mistake to be paralyzed by fear of the future. This fear does not allow for a critical perspective, to know where to put limits, how to regulate and accompany change.
If technical progress wasn’t synonymous with progress, it would be dangerous to reject it altogether and leave it up to “newer” countries that have everything to build. Don’t be afraid of the “big replacement” of workers! The future of work will unleash talent, of which humans will have a monopoly over for a long time to come.