Work in the Digital Era: How Technology is Transforming Work and Occupations

"This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of digital technologies on work and occupations in Europe, critically reassessing dominant narratives of mass unemployment and job polarisation. The report synthesises work done by the JRC Employment team over the last years. Drawing on a wide range of empirical research, the report introduces an analytical framework distinguishing three main vectors of change: automation, the replacement of labour by machines; digitisation, the increasing use of digital tools in work processes; and platformisation, the use of digital platforms for coordinating work. Contrary to widespread fears, our research finds that the impact of automation, such as industrial robots, on net employment levels in recent decades has been modest and often positive. While specific tasks are automated, this has primarily boosted productivity and led to a reallocation of labour rather than a net destruction of jobs. The most profound transformation stems from digitisation. This process, while enhancing efficiency, has fundamentally altered work organisation by enabling unprecedented levels of standardisation, monitoring, and managerial control. This creates a central paradox: while employment shifts away from routine occupations, work processes within many non-routine professional roles are becoming increasingly routinised and subject to digital control, impacting worker autonomy and job quality. Finally, the report identifies the rise of platformisation, not just in the gig economy, but as a logic of algorithmic management and surveillance extending into traditional workplaces. This trend is reshaping the nature of workplace control across the economy. Analysis of occupational structures reveals that job upgrading, rather than job polarisation, has been the most common pattern of change across the EU, driven largely by the growth of high-skilled service sector jobs. The report concludes that the primary impact of the digital era on work is a qualitative transformation in its nature, focusing on coordination, control, and job quality. The effects of technology are not deterministic; they are strongly mediated by institutional frameworks, with regulation and collective bargaining playing a crucial role in shaping outcomes for workers in the digital age."