Digitalisation of the economy and its impact on labour markets —

Christophe Degryse
numerous new jobs <strong>and</strong> to a reduction in repetitive <strong>and</strong> routine jobs. ‘As
technological innovation increases productivity, real wages tend to rise over
time ; <strong>and</strong> as <strong>the</strong> income for labor <strong>and</strong> capital rises over time, greater dem<strong>and</strong>
for goods <strong>and</strong> services — both old <strong>and</strong> new — leads to an increase in dem<strong>and</strong>
for labor in <strong>the</strong> old <strong>and</strong> new sectors’ (Roubini 2015).
Are we too on <strong>the</strong> eve <strong>of</strong> a revolution that will create large numbers <strong>of</strong> new jobs
while getting rid <strong>of</strong> repetitive tasks? In <strong>the</strong> view <strong>of</strong> several authors, <strong>the</strong> reply
must be, ‘no, this time it is different’ (Frey <strong>and</strong> Osborne 2015). The threat is <strong>of</strong>
a jobless future (Ford 2015), <strong>of</strong> an <strong>economy</strong> characterised by tremendous
productivity gains but requiring ever fewer workers.
According to Brynjolfsson <strong>and</strong> McAfee (2011), in a long series <strong>of</strong> cognitive tasks
(<strong>and</strong> not simply routine <strong>and</strong> manual ones), computers are increasingly
representing a challenge to human labour. The new technologies can indeed
bring about a radical change in <strong>the</strong> <strong>economy</strong>, creating jobs, but at <strong>the</strong> same
time unemployment in <strong>the</strong> less- or medium-skilled occupations that can be
replaced by algorithms <strong>and</strong> robots (including, for example, driving a car or
cooking). The following anecdote indicates <strong>the</strong> speed <strong>of</strong> change: ‘Although Levy
<strong>and</strong> Murname wrote in 2003 that driving in traffic could not be automated
because <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> complexity <strong>of</strong> human perception, Google announced <strong>its</strong>
autonomous car in 2010’ (Valsamis et al. 2015). The tendency is clear: while
<strong>the</strong>re will be winners, <strong>the</strong>re will also be losers <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> split will be between <strong>the</strong>
highly skilled <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> low skilled, between <strong>the</strong> ‘superstars’ (<strong>the</strong> ‘winner takes
all effect’, Hacker <strong>and</strong> Pierson 2010, also stressed by Ford 2015) <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong>
ordinary people, as well as between capital <strong>and</strong> labour (Brynjolfsson <strong>and</strong>
McAfee 2014).
Irani (2015) <strong>of</strong>fers, for her part, a somewhat critical reading <strong>of</strong> this ‘second age
<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> machine’. Allowing <strong>the</strong>mselves to be blinded, according to her, by <strong>the</strong>
engineers <strong>of</strong> Google, Facebook, etc., authors fail to see that algorithms do not
replace labour but displace it. ‘McAfee <strong>and</strong> Brynjolfsson ignore <strong>the</strong> labor <strong>of</strong>
cultural data workers, as if algorithms trained, tuned, <strong>and</strong> augmented
<strong>the</strong>mselves, like magic’. Thus, she observes, <strong>the</strong>re exist armies <strong>of</strong> workers in
<strong>the</strong> shadows, about whom <strong>the</strong> big platforms do not say a word: ‘Google’s selfdriving
car doesn’t simply go anywhere <strong>its</strong> passengers please. For this car to
drive “<strong>its</strong>elf,” a human worker has to drive around, scan, <strong>and</strong> map <strong>the</strong> car’s
world—including everything from curb heights to intersection angles.
Machine-learning algorithms that partially automate data processing still need
to be trained for every new form, or every new kind <strong>of</strong> topic <strong>the</strong> algorithm might
deal with’. Algorithms will not, according to this author, replace labour but,
ra<strong>the</strong>r, will displace it internationally.
Frey <strong>and</strong> Osborne (2013), in a frequently quoted study, take a look at <strong>the</strong>
United States labour market <strong>and</strong> try to define <strong>the</strong> probability <strong>of</strong> seeing jobs in
702 types <strong>of</strong> occupation replaced by computers <strong>and</strong> machines. The variables
to be taken into account to define this ‘computerisation’ 16 are much more
16. Defined as <strong>the</strong> automation <strong>of</strong> a job by means <strong>of</strong> computer-controlled equipment.
22 WP 2016.02