69 predictions about the labour market in 2040

I have been fascinated by the future of the labour market. For me, it started with a book called “Jobshift” by William Bridges, a book that suggested that we would get to a cake layer model. With an elite on top, a middle layer and a large bottom layer of unskilled labour. In some ways, the author was not far off. That was 1995.

The future is entrepreneurship

I wrote about it before. I think the future is entrepreneurship. Everyone will become gig workers and are entrepreneurs on the labour market. I have had fascinating conversations with Sunil Prashara, the CEO of PMI, about the future of work. Organisations will become super-agile and gymnastic, with a small core of staff and lots of on-demand labour. Combine that with automation and citizen development, and you have a fascinating cocktail of change.

Hence “The End of Jobs: The Rise of On-Demand Workers and Agile Corporations”

The book maps those changes against power balance, labour regulations, the role of unions and social structure. The conclusion is that regulation and social structure are still in the industrial age. It is high time for an overhaul. We have gone full circle. The word “job” as an employment concept is only about 160 years old. We started as a gig economy in the middle ages, and then we got industrialised…