Economic Catastrophe or Revolutionary Opportunity? Internet and technological advancement (Ict) change the way of working and producing, eliminating hundreds of thousands of jobs but offering many and many more. Is the balance positive or negative? Technical progress will certainly bring employment but what will the transition be like? And how will the benefits be distributed? The premise, as always, is in the numbers: 97% of jobs at risk in the US, he explains Joseph Recchi, President of Telecom Italy, is due to the fact that in the future those jobs will be replaced by machines. For example, three-dimensional printers will put some industrial jobs out of business. At the same time, “the European Commission estimates that 900.000 jobs will be lost in the ICT sector in 2017 (despite youth unemployment at 43% in countries such as Italy) due to a lack of adequate skills. It's impressive”, concludes the Telecom manager. And to understand more, the national telecommunications giant called economists and experts to fathom the new world that is opening up, dedicating an entire day to study it (“Internet, jobs & skills: an opportunity for growth").
End of factories
“Are we facing the end of factories? Internet and technology – observes Recchi – create a new way of working and revolutionize the entire production chain. Ict and the world of telecommunications are changing our lives; it is therefore logical that a company like Telecom, with 60.000 employees, wonders about the scenarios that are opening up. Innovation is successful because it improves people's lives and creates new opportunities but we must ask ourselves what the transition entails, what the world of work will be like not only in the future but already today, knowing that the work of the future will be different. We have to look for it now, preparing our children. The sooner we adapt, the sooner we will save ourselves”.
Facilitate the transition
Are we then faced with the alternative of fewer arms and more bits? The node is planetary and also affects the challenge between mature and emerging economies. “Undoubtedly we are facing a de-industrialization of some trades – says Eli Noam of Columbia Business School in a video – but also a de-servicesization of others. And yet there are professions that cannot be digitized: such as the hotel maid or the worker employed in the construction of motorways. It is the "middle" jobs that have the greatest problems, while professional jobs as well as low-profile ones are growing". Lights and shadows of the advance of technology. Who will survive the “car race”? Andrew McAfee, a researcher at MIT, is optimistic: "Tomorrow's successful companies will combine what people can do with what machines can do". Is it possible to reconcile two types of intelligence and skills? More than anything it is necessary. “Whoever has managed to adapt so far – warns Andrea de Panizza, OECD-Istat senior economist – has won and managed to reconcile growth and employment. But it's not simple; the future may not be rosy and the role of policies is to encourage the adaptation process to be successful”.
Network, prices and public companies
“Interesting reasoning – he observes though Julius Sapelli of the University of Milan – but here the stone guest is the Italian and European regulator. We forget that we are dealing with regulated systems and that regulation, in the last 20 years, has lowered company margins and has forgotten to encourage investment”. Just what he asks instead Marco Patuano, CEO of Telecom: “By lowering the prices the focus was on the democratization of services. But if you want to restart investments, you cannot fail to consider the issue of rules for such an innovative sector" in which the group invests 3 billion a year to cover 2016% of the population with fixed fiber in 50 and over 80% on mobile with Lte. A transformation of the infrastructure that proceeds together with the 'mutation' of the group's DNA. "We are pursuing a public company model - concluded Patuano - and we work for the company's interest, above the interest of individual shareholders in a market of small and long-term investors".
The issue of remuneration and the network is therefore once again central right now that the government is about to present to Europe the national broadband plan which puts 7 billion public resources on the plate for an upgrade of the fiber network from 30 to 100 Megabits. But the Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan reassures Telecom on the subject of spin-off:“Corporate strategies – he assures us – are decided by companies, not by the government. But it is in everyone's interest to restart investments. The public ones but above all the private ones”. And here the measures already presented or in progress are at stake, he recalls: Sblocca Italia, the broadband plan, the stability law. Will they be enough to "put businesses in the best condition to invest"? We will see that very soon.
Attachments: The effects of ICT on work – OECD.PDF
