A range of studies in recent months have warned of an imminent job apocalypse. The most famous of these suggests that up to 47 per cent of US jobs are at high-risk of automation over the next two decades. Another study finds 54 per cent of EU jobs are likely automatable, while the chief economist of the Bank of England has argued that 45 per cent of UK jobs are similarly under threat.
This is not simply a rich country problem either, as low-income economies look set to be hit even harder by automation. It would seem that we are on the verge of a mass job extinction. But is this the case? Others point to the longer history of automation and suggest there is nothing to worry about. This talk will examine some of the issues and set the conditions and progressive potentials for a world without work.
Wednesday, 31 August 2016
4pm–5:30pm
WA220, 55 Wellesley Street East
AUT City Campus
Seminar open to all at no charge.
Spaces are limited.
Register here.
Following the seminar, refreshments will be served in WG201.
Speaker Bio: Nick Srnicek
Nick Srnicek is a Lecturer in International Political Economy at City University London. He is the author of Platform Capitalism (Polity, 2016), After Work: What’s Left and Who Cares? (Verso, 2017 with Helen Hester), and Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work (Verso, 2015 with Alex Williams).
Presented by the NZ Work Research Institute, in collaboration with AUT Business School, the School of Social Sciences, University of Auckland and Economic and Social Research Aotearoa (ESRA).
