Technology, change, and uncertainty: maintaining career confidence in the early 21st century

• Date: 01 November 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12151
• Published date: 01 November 2019

© 2019 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and

John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Technology, change, and uncertainty 191

New Technology, Work and Employment 34:3

ISSN 1468-005X

Technology, change, and uncertainty:

maintaining career condence in the early

21st century

Zlatko Skrbiš and Jacqueline Laughland-Booÿ

Over the coming decades, technology and automation are

expected to dramatically transform how work will be un-

dertaken. While many of these developments will improve

productivity and provide new opportunities, some jobs will

likely disappear. In this article, we report data from in-depth

interviews undertaken with 51 young Australians about their

strategies for managing the possibility of technological disrup-

tion in the workplace. In the face of future uncertainties, we

found that the majority of our participants remained condent

in their ability to maintain for themselves a ‘good’ career story.

We posit, however, that those who could neither avoid nor

reduce the possibility that technological advancements might

jeopardise their career plans demonstrated an outlook of career

malleability whereby they accepted the risk yet remained sub-

jectively condent in their own capacity to rewrite their career

narrative if, or when, circumstances demanded.

Keywords: the future of work, career planning, ontological se-

curity, uncertainty and risk, digital disruption.

Introduction

We have entered the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This is an era in which automation, ar-

ticial intelligence, and universal interconnectivity are transforming the workplace and

redening opportunities (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2016; Schwab, 2016). A change of

work practices because of new inventions is by no means a recent or unique phenomenon.

Alongside technological progress, history has always seen the disappearance of some jobs

and the emergence of others. What is new is that advancements are now occurring expo-

nentially and simultaneously. This is generating what has been described as a ‘perfect

storm’—one that will signicantly impact work in the future (Hajkowicz etal., 2016: 7).

Media coverage supports the notion that technological advances are dramatically

changing our work and threatening employment. For instance, popular media continue

to report that our jobs will be taken over by robots (Wakeeld, 2015; Wall, 2018),

Professor Zlatko Skrbiš (zlatko.skrbis@acu.edu.au) is Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education and Innova-

tion) and Professor of Sociology at the Australian Catholic University, Australia. He is also an Adjunct

Professor of Sociology at Monash University, Australia. He is Principal Chief Investigator for the ‘So-

cial Futures and Life Pathways of Young People in Queensland’ project. His research interests include

youth studies, cosmopolitanism, and social theory.

Dr Jacqueline Laughland-Booÿ (jacqueline.laughlandbooy@acu.edu.au) is a Postdoctoral Research

Fellow at the Australian Catholic University, Australia. She is also an Adjunct Research Fellow in the

School of Social Sciences at Monash University, Australia. Her research interests are in the elds of

youth studies, careers, and political sociology.

Zlatko Skrbiš and Jacqueline Laughland-Booÿ should be considered as joint first author.

192 New Technology, Work and Employment

© 2019 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and

John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

unemployment rates will increase, wages will suffer, and employment conditions will

become increasingly precarious (Kehoe, 2018; Letts, 2018). While the extent to which

these claims can be substantiated remains a matter of debate (see Autor, 2015; Arntz

etal., 2017), news headlines such as ‘Adapt or die: How to cope when the bots take

your job’ (Wall, 2018) highlight how such warnings could cause public uncertainty. It

would also be fair to say that the burden is being placed upon individuals to prepare

for this new future, and to protect themselves against the potential risks of digital

disruption.

In this article, we draw on qualitative data from a study of 51 Australians who are

currently aged in their mid-20s, to explore how people at the beginning of their work-

ing lifetimes are responding to these predicted threats to work and employment. We

have undertaken in-depth interviews with these individuals and documented their

understandings of the opportunities and challenges that are likely to occur over the

coming decades because of technological advancement. Elaborating on sociological

literature related to the individualisation of risk (Beck, 1992) and ontological security

(Giddens, 1991), we explain how individuals are maintaining a sense of career con-

dence, despite facing uncertainties about how an increased use of technology and

automation in the workplace will ultimately inuence their career plans.2

Technology and the future of work

In the 21st century, the rate and range of technological advancements are predicted to

dramatically transform how work is undertaken. Automation will no longer be limited

to carrying out tasks that are simple and repetitive and will include activities that re-

quire high levels of accuracy and precision. Added to this, sophisticated systems of

machine learning and articial intelligence will see machines able to accomplish a

broad range of complex activities (Schwab, 2016).

The internet will also continue to change how work is done. Already we have seen

dramatic changes in retail, entertainment, and service provision practices because of

interconnected computer networks. In addition, the interconnectivity of digital devices

via the web (the ‘Internet of Things’) offers new opportunities for how information is

gathered, analysed, and applied. As the number of internet-enabled devices and com-

puters that are connected to one another rises, this in turn is shaping decisions about

how human labour is deployed (Dutton, 2014).

Widespread developments in technology mean that labour requirements and work

functions will likely be redened. There is also a possibility that some jobs will ulti-

mately disappear (Centre for the New Economy and Society, 2018). While the total

number of jobs in developed countries under threat over the coming years has been

disputed (see Arntz etal., 2017), some analysts have put the gure upwards of 40–50

per cent. A study by Frey and Osborne (2017), for example, predicts that within

20years, 47 per cent of current jobs in the United States will disappear. Similar gures

have also been forecasted in Australia (Durrent-Whyte et al., 2015; Edmonds and

Bradley, 2015). There may also be a shift towards increased outsourcing of work, ex-

ible contracts, freelancing, or ‘gig’ jobs, thereby compromising job security for many

individuals (Centre for the New Economy and Society, 2018).

But technological advancement may not necessarily lead to increased unemploy-

ment and precarious working conditions. In certain instances, machines will comple-

ment human labour—potentially increasing output and earnings (Autor, 2015). There

are also many sectors where the use of automation will remain limited, including roles

that require high levels of creative intelligence, the ability to problem-solve, or strong

interpersonal skills (Autor, 2015; Edmonds and Bradley, 2015). Furthermore, new tech-

nologies have the potential to create new and exciting opportunities that are yet to be

imagined (Arntz etal., 2016; Borland and Coelli, 2017).

We cannot accurately predict the true impact that emerging technologies will have

on future job availability, but the rhetoric surrounding threat to employment is creat-

ing a degree of ‘automation anxiety’ within both the public and academic spheres (see