The Future of Work

Daniel Susskind (2020), A World without Work, Allen Lane, pp.326

This International Labour Day, here is a book that looks into the future of work. As we commemorate the rights at work that were incrementally earned over a century by means of labour movements, the cruel irony is that we are facing a future where there is much less work in the form of formal employment. As machines become adept at solving tasks, how do humans find ways to sustain economically? Without work, how do we define the meaning and purpose of life?

Daniel Susskind is an economist at Oxford University and the co-author of the much- acclaimed The Future of Professions.  Having been part of the British Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, he has considerable experience at the highest levels of policy making in the United Kingdom. The influence of having dabbled in the world of ideas that work on the ground shines through this book, as Susskind grapples with technology and automation that decimates work that humans perform, and argues how we must respond and rise up to this challenge.

The structure of the book clearly demarcates the three sections - threat, context and response – each with four chapters. In the first section, Susskind examines the historical context of misplaced anxiety throughout the industrial revolution when machines continually displaced human labour. Through the historical examples, he seeks to understand and compare tasks performed by humans and machines. Understanding how machines work is helpful in estimating what kind of work they are likely to displace humans at and others they require humans to collaborate with.

In the second section, Susskind explores unemployment theoretically. Here, the author elaborates on task encroachment by machines, differentiates frictional from technological unemployment, and examines the relationship between technology and inequality. In the third section, the author moves on to how we can respond to the unemployment challenge posed by automation. He discusses the role of education, state regulation and corporations in responding meaningfully to the reality of less and less work in the world.

If you want an overview of the type of changes that are coming in the world of work, this is a good book to begin with. The approach taken to understanding the issue is predominantly economic, but Susskind also brings in perspectives from history and sociology to augment his arguments. The language is clear and succinct and the parts are neatly organized. In fact, there is a structural symmetry to the form led by the content of the book. A high recommendation for graduate students, academics, policy makers, and the lay reader alike.