We live in an era of vertiginous technological change. This transformation is precipitating visible upheavals across every domain of social life—changes so rapid that we often struggle to cope with or even comprehend them. Understandably, this generates mounting uncertainty and anxiety amongst populations worldwide, fuelling political conflict and social distress.
Nowhere is this techno-anxiety more acute than in the sphere of employment. For the past two decades—beginning roughly with the Great Recession—relentless debate has raged about how digital technologies, robots and, more recently, artificial intelligence are destroying jobs en masse (or will imminently do so), rendering human skills obsolete before they can be acquired or updated, and polarising labour markets and social structures. This grim vision of work’s future has undoubtedly contributed to widespread anxiety about what lies ahead.
But does the evidence actually support such dark prognoses? The digital revolution began more than five decades ago, and according to the most accepted theory of technological revolutions—that of Freeman and Pérez—it should have already run its course. After an initial phase of installation and diffusion in the 1980s and 1990s, which ended with a financial bubble at the millennium’s turn (precisely as the model predicted), the deployment phase of the past twenty years has noticeably transformed societies, political systems and economic structures.
Thus, we are probably witnessing the twilight of the digital revolution’s cycle whilst standing at the threshold of the next—perhaps triggered by AI, renewable energies, biotechnology or quantum computing, it remains difficult to predict with certainty. Nevertheless, we should now be able to assess the digital revolution’s actual impact on work and employment, and venture informed speculation about what the future may hold.
Three vectors of change
At the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, we have conducted an eight-year research programme to better understand how digital technologies are reshaping the world of work and how European policy should respond to associated challenges. This research programme has been structured around three vectors of change, which we consider the principal ways digital technologies affect work. First, the automation of work focuses on the replacement of human input by machines for certain tasks, and how this alters employment structures. Second, the digitalisation of processes examines how the increasing use of digital tools at work transforms the nature of work itself. Third, the platformisation of work investigates how platforms and algorithmic management are increasingly deployed for work organisation.
In a recently published report (available for download here), we synthesise the main findings of this research programme, speculate on possible future developments, and discuss policy implications.
Although most debate about work’s future has fixated on automation, our findings indicate it has been the least significant of the three vectors of change in terms of actual impact on work and employment. Instead, digitisation has produced the most tangible effects on the world of work thus far. And whilst still the most nascent of the three, platformisation may prove most consequential in the long term—especially if, as seems likely, artificial intelligence enhances it in coming years.
Our research on automation has consistently contradicted the negative narratives that have dominated recent debates about work’s future. Despite European manufacturing being amongst the world’s most advanced users of industrial robots, the data reveals no significant negative employment effects in recent decades. In fact, our findings show that sectors and countries embracing industrial robots more extensively tended to be more economically successful and more resilient in employment terms.
Overall, digital technologies’ effect on employment numbers has tended to be small, incremental and generally positive rather than negative. The most common pattern of occupational change in Europe (and beyond) in recent decades has been one of upgrading, with high-skilled occupations growing faster than others. We did observe job polarisation in some countries and periods, but these tended to correlate with regulatory changes—such as labour market deregulation processes in the 1990s and early 2000s in certain European countries—rather than technological progress.
The most significant and pervasive impact of the digital revolution on work has been the growing digitisation of all work processes. This highly visible and consequential change has created workplaces where digital devices are omnipresent, serving purposes from information gathering to communication and control, and expanding new forms of work such as telework and hybrid work arrangements.
A remarkably consistent finding is that digitisation can improve efficiency, but often at the expense of work intensification, as workers themselves report in surveys and case studies. In our research, we frequently encountered paradoxical effects of work digitisation. For instance: whilst digital technologies reduce the labour input necessary for routine tasks, they simultaneously increase the routinisation and bureaucratisation of professional occupations.
This occurs because these technologies standardise workflows, imposing predefined forms and metrics that limit discretionary judgement and creativity. By subjecting even non-routine jobs to standardisation, digitisation may pave the way for future automation. And depending on the specific context and institutional or regulatory framework, digitisation can both empower and disempower workers—increasing responsibility whilst decreasing autonomy, or expanding communication channels whilst generating social isolation.
These paradoxes relate to the dual nature of digital devices: they serve as complementary instruments of labour that can multiply workers’ cognitive capacities, whilst simultaneously functioning as information control devices that enhance managerial oversight. Whether a work setting prioritises enhancement of work or managerial control ultimately determines the impact on workers.
The third vector of change represents a phenomenon that, whilst still emerging, may ultimately prove most consequential: the platformisation of work. Digital platforms constitute the most efficient form for coordinating multi-party interactions in digital networks, which explains why they increasingly coordinate all aspects of social and economic life, from romantic relationships to finance.
The same pattern emerges in the world of work. The growing digitisation of work processes both facilitates and fosters their subsequent platformisation. The platformisation of work, in our analysis, specifically entails an expansion of data-driven systems for work coordination, management and control—including digital monitoring and algorithmic management across various economic activities.
This deployment of digital devices and software platforms for monitoring and managing work processes was pioneered by digital labour platforms in the gig economy—a phenomenon of the digital revolution’s mature phase that has stabilised as a marginal form of work in Europe in recent years. However, these same practices of digital monitoring and algorithmic management, implemented through internal communication and collaboration platforms, are gradually extending across many economic sectors.
Transport and finance lead this transformation, but high-tech industries and public sectors are following suit. Consequently, some effects previously observed in digital labour platforms—such as work intensification, reduced autonomy and social isolation—may extend to these sectors as well.
Rethinking the future of work
Our research over recent years suggests that debates about work’s future have been strikingly misguided. The digital revolution has profoundly impacted the world of work, but not through automation. After decades of digital revolution, employment levels in Europe remain historically high, and occupational structures have been remarkably stable—if anything, consistently upgrading in recent years.
Simultaneously, however, the nature and forms of working have transformed profoundly. Digital devices and software algorithms have become increasingly central not merely as work tools, but as mechanisms of coordination and managerial control.
We cannot know whether the future will diverge dramatically from the recent past, but we can observe a strikingly similar debate unfolding about artificial intelligence’s impact on work. It represents, in fact, a continuation of the previous debate—if anything, with even more apocalyptic and urgent undertones. We must ask ourselves whether this debate might not be similarly misguided.
Perhaps AI’s impact on employment numbers will not prove as catastrophic as many assume. Perhaps, like its digital predecessors, it will have more consequential effects on how work is coordinated and controlled. The implications for policy would be profoundly different—requiring us to focus less on job numbers and more on ensuring that technological change enhances rather than diminishes the quality of working life.
Enrique Fernández-Macías is a Researcher working in the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission in Sevilla. He holds a PhD in Economic Sociology by the University of Salamanca, and his main research interests are job quality, technology & occupational change and the division of labour. Before joining the JRC, he worked in the University of Salamanca and Eurofound (Dublin).
Ignacio González-Vázquez is researcher at the European Commission´s Joint Research Centre. His research focuses on the changing nature of work in Europe, looking at the impact of the digital revolution on work organisation and job quality and considering also other factors such as the institutional framework and the energy transition. Throughout his career in the European Commission he has also worked in the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion dealing the employment and social aspects of the European Semester, and the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs dealing with the economic adjustment programme for Greece, among others.
Laura Nurski is Head of Programme on Future of Work at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), part-time assistant professor Acerta Chair AI at Work at KU Leuven, and an independent researcher. She holds a PhD in Economics, a M.Sc. in Business Engineering and is currently finishing a M.Sc. in Sociology, all from KU Leuven. Her research focuses on the design of jobs and organisations, occupational change in the labour market, and the role of AI and digital technologies. Laura has also worked as a machine learning data scientist in the private sector and as an organisation design researcher in a non-profit.
Sergio Torrejón Pérez is a Research Scientist in Public Research Organizations, currently based at the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research (CIS). His research lies at the intersection of sociology and economics, focusing on labour markets, employment, social stratification, demography, and health. Previously, he worked as an analyst at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, the Spanish Ministry of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Wellbeing, 40dB., and the Complutense University of Madrid. He has also been a visiting researcher at EUROFOUND (Dublin) and the European University Institute (Florence).
