Community news|30/12/21

Implications of automation, digitisation and platforms for work and employment

Home > The news of EUROGIP and occupational risks in Europe > Implications of automation, digitisation and platforms for work and employment

In a context of rapid change, Eurofound has published a new report “The Digital Age: Implications of Automation, Digitalisation and Platforms for Work and Employment”.

The economy and labour markets of the EU and beyond are in the midst of a digital revolution. While the transition to a digitalised society has been happening for several decades, technological change is accelerating due to the expanding capacity of electronic devices to store, process and communicate information. The recent Covid-19 pandemic has further contributed to increasing the pace of digitalisation. Digitalisation is a wide field, and its impact differs depending on the technology, country, sector and type of business as well as the workers in the digital environment. To capture this complexity, Eurofound has developed a conceptual framework that structures its research according to three vectors of change: the automation of tasks, the digitisation of processes and coordination through platforms. In practice, these vectors tend to be deployed in combination, together with general purpose technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI). This report provides a snapshot of how these vectors influence employment, work and social dialogue. It concentrates on key emerging issues and derives policy pointers from them. The report summarises the content of Eurofound’s online resource The digital age: Automation, digitisation and platforms, which is planned to be regularly updated and extended.

Find out more
Executive summary

Discover other news

Abroad

22/09/23

BELGIUM: what to expect from occupational illnesses in 2022

In 2022, around 38,500 people received compensation for permanent disability due to an occupational disease. And nearly 13,000 workers (private sector and provincial or local administrations, APL) filed a claim for compensation; 211 deaths were recognised, 73% of which were due to asbestos, 17% to silicosis and 10% to other diseases. These are the findings of the Fedris “Statistical Report on Occupational Diseases” 2022.

Abroad

22/09/23

FINLAND: the number of accidents at work rose in 2021

In 2021, more than 91,159 accidents at work occurred in Finland, around 4,500 more than in 2020. As in the previous year, construction workers (10,787), care and health service workers (9,367) and machine shop and foundry workers (7,162) were most affected.