Shifting the fundamentals

By Claire McCarthy The world of work is changing. The work of the Changing Work Centre and the Commission on Workers and Technology demonstrates that. For many that brings a sense of foreboding and leads to news headlines threatening that ‘robots are coming to take all of our jobs’. But I want to argue for …

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Thinking the unthinkable about the future of work

By Norman Pickavance You no longer need to be ‘Mystic Meg’ to predict the future impact of artificial intelligence and robotics on work. In some ways the future is already happening. Given that, what may be most important now is to understand the way these major trends are going to impact us in very different …

Reaping the rewards

By Carys Roberts At any time of flux there are opportunities to entrench or overcome the problems of the status quo. One such problem is the gendered world of work that results in a gender pay gap of 17.9 per cent, unequal access to jobs and hours, and women doing 60 per cent more unpaid work than …

Making tech work

By Tom Watson It’s nearly three years ago now since I set up an independent Commission on the Future of Work with my colleague, Helen Mountfield QC. We saw that technology like automation, AI, and machine learning was causing significant disruption in the world of work, destroying some jobs, hollowing out others, and shifting the …

Intelligent futures

By Ivana Bartoletti Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere, and it is changing the way we live, think and make decisions – and have decisions made about us. There is no part of our life which is untouched by this new transformative technology. Insurance, medical care, mortgages, transport, policing, bail and parole, newsfeeds, political and commercial …

No automation without representation

By Areeq Chowdhury “Workers are Britain’s real wealth creators. They deserve a seat at the table.”  Those were the words of Jeremy Corbyn last year when he announced that a Labour government will require companies to hand over a third of the seats on their boards to workers. The announcement was met with joy by trade unions and dismay by big business. The …

Future uncertainties

By Josh Abey There’s no shortage of predictions – ranging from the modest to the cataclysmic – about what automation means for the future of work. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) this week added its authoritative voice to the chorus, claiming that 1.5m jobs in England are at ‘high risk’ of automation. This means …

Getting technical

By Dr Fiona Aldridge Over the next few weeks, young people across the country will be receiving their exam results. Tension will be building in households up and down the land. And this is not unjustified; educational attainment is becoming increasingly central to life chances. At the Learning and Work Institute, we know that education is …

Launch of Commission on Workers and Technology

A new Commission on Workers and Technology chaired by Yvette Cooper MP is launched today with the publication of new evidence on British workers’ hopes and fears for automation over the next decade. The two year commission organised by the trade union Community and the Fabian Society will identify the immediate actions that government, employers and trade unions …

Rocket Boosters

By David Arnold The annual publication of trade union statistics seldom lifts the spirits. Although the recently published figures for 2017 show an increase in membership of 19,000, because the number of people in work rose faster, the proportion of working people who are members of unions overall fell again. The share of employees who are union …