Digitalisation of the economy and its impact on labour markets —

Christophe Degryse
— job destruction: automation, robotisation;
— job shift: digital platforms, crowd sourcing, ‘sharing’ <strong>economy</strong>.
These four <strong>impact</strong>s <strong>of</strong> digitalisation are shot through with macroeconomic
stakes deriving from developments in labour markets, pay, social inequality,
quality <strong>of</strong> newly created, changed, or ‘shifted’ jobs, etc.
The following pages will examine <strong>the</strong> principal existing studies, first for <strong>the</strong>
various sectors <strong>of</strong> industry <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong>n for services.
One initial comment is, however, in order: it is increasingly apparent from a
reading <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> literature that <strong>the</strong> traditional split between ‘industry’ <strong>and</strong>
‘services’ is becoming ever less relevant. The ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’
seems to be making <strong>the</strong> frontier between <strong>the</strong> two sectors much more porous:
an emblematic case <strong>of</strong> this characteristic merging <strong>of</strong> industry <strong>and</strong> services is
<strong>the</strong> so-called intelligent car, potentially a ‘computer on wheels’ (industriAll
2015), incorporating all <strong>the</strong> services that mobile applications are increasingly
able to <strong>of</strong>fer <strong>the</strong> user.
It is significant that a major German car manufacturer boasts not only <strong>the</strong>
technological features <strong>of</strong> <strong>its</strong> vehicles (performance, comfort, etc.) but also ‘a new
form <strong>of</strong> mobility for a more dynamic way to get around’ (car2go by Daimler 12 )
<strong>and</strong> that it is already at work devising <strong>the</strong> different services that it might <strong>of</strong>fer
<strong>the</strong> passengers <strong>of</strong> <strong>its</strong> future driverless cars: entertainment, virtual reality,
historical or tourist information on <strong>the</strong> places through which it passes, etc. 13
Similarly, <strong>the</strong> International Automobile Federation (FIA) recently revealed to
what extent <strong>the</strong> cars <strong>of</strong> today collect for <strong>the</strong>ir manufacturers all sorts <strong>of</strong>
personal data about car owners. Thus certain models <strong>of</strong> BMW send to <strong>the</strong>ir
manufacturer data concerning <strong>the</strong> driver, her/his location, routes taken, last
hundred parking spaces, manner <strong>of</strong> driving, mobile phone synchronisation
data, etc. (FIA 2015). According to The Economist (2015b), ‘a high-end car, for
instance, has <strong>the</strong> digital horsepower <strong>of</strong> 20 personal computers <strong>and</strong> generates
25 gigabytes <strong>of</strong> data per hour <strong>of</strong> driving’.
By contrast, it is equally significant that a company like Google should be
investing in <strong>the</strong> construction <strong>of</strong> autonomous vehicles that are <strong>the</strong> product <strong>of</strong>
<strong>its</strong> geolocation <strong>and</strong> online route calculation services, etc. This development is
also reflected in <strong>the</strong> adjective ‘smart’ increasingly used to describe <strong>the</strong>se
vehicles <strong>and</strong> which, according to our hypo<strong>the</strong>sis, simply reflects <strong>the</strong>
combination between industry <strong>and</strong> digital services: after <strong>the</strong> ‘smart’ phone we
now have <strong>the</strong> smart car, <strong>the</strong> smart factory, <strong>the</strong> smart watch, smart clo<strong>the</strong>s <strong>and</strong>
even smart cities. At <strong>the</strong> same time, <strong>and</strong> in a manner that is better documented,
this development corresponds to <strong>the</strong> emergence <strong>of</strong> an <strong>economy</strong> based on
services <strong>and</strong> no longer solely on ownership. Does one need to be a car owner
or to have ready access to services that provide mobility? Does one need to own
12. https://www.car2go.com
13. Le Monde 19.11.2015.
18 WP 2016.02