IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/108817.html

Digital transformation, COVID-19, and the future of work

Author

Listed:
  • Schilirò, Daniele

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an acceleration of digital transformation, forcing countries and organizations around the world to make big changes in people’s lives. This paper analyses the diffusion of the digital economy and highlights the capabilities and readiness of economies to undertake the process of digital transformation. It also points out that the digital transformation is profoundly changing the global economy and society, not necessarily benefiting everyone. The challenge is to avoid the risk that the new digital system creates a more “restricted” economic and social environment, with the digital divide affecting many people across the world. The study also explores the implications of both digitization and digital technologies on the labor market and future jobs. COVID-19 and digital transformation have overturned assumptions about how individuals work by demanding new tasks and skills from employees. The paper emphasizes that any process of automation involves substituting machines for labor and leads to the displacement of workers, although there are counterbalancing forces. At the same time, digital transformation and its processes offer opportunities to create new tasks and new professional figures. However, the key to success for a fair and inclusive digital transformation lies in the joint efforts of state, business, and people.

Suggested Citation

  • Schilirò, Daniele, 2021. "Digital transformation, COVID-19, and the future of work," MPRA Paper 108817, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:108817
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/108817/1/MPRA_paper_108817.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Schilirò, Daniele, 2020. "Towards digital globalization and the covid-19 challenge," MPRA Paper 100504, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised May 2020.
    2. Daniele SCHILIRÒ, 2012. "Knowledge-Based Economies And The Institutional Environment," Theoretical and Practical Research in the Economic Fields, ASERS Publishing, vol. 3(1), pages 42-50.
    3. Ajay Agrawal & Joshua Gans & Avi Goldfarb, 2019. "The Economics of Artificial Intelligence: An Agenda," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number agra-1, December.
    4. Daron Acemoglu & Pascual Restrepo, 2018. "Artificial Intelligence, Automation, and Work," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Artificial Intelligence: An Agenda, pages 197-236, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Verhoef, Peter C. & Broekhuizen, Thijs & Bart, Yakov & Bhattacharya, Abhi & Qi Dong, John & Fabian, Nicolai & Haenlein, Michael, 2021. "Digital transformation: A multidisciplinary reflection and research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 889-901.
    6. Agrawal, Ajay & Gans, Joshua & Goldfarb, Avi (ed.), 2019. "The Economics of Artificial Intelligence," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226613338, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Schilirò, Daniele, 2025. "Tariffs and deglobalization. Is globalization going backwards?," MPRA Paper 126326, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Grasso, Filippo & Schilirò, Daniele, 2025. "Territorial sustainability and roots tourism," MPRA Paper 124209, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 25 Feb 2025.
    3. Schilirò, Daniele, 2025. "Knowledge economy and innovation," MPRA Paper 126380, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Schilirò, Daniele, 2024. "Public debt and demography. An analysis of the Italian case," MPRA Paper 121958, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Schilirò, Daniele, 2023. "Technological progress and the future of work," MPRA Paper 117927, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barbieri, Laura & Mussida, Chiara & Piva, Mariacristina & Vivarelli, Marco, 2019. "Testing the employment and skill impact of new technologies: A survey and some methodological issues," GLO Discussion Paper Series 397, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    2. Mr. Andrew Berg & Lahcen Bounader & Nikolay Gueorguiev & Hiroaki Miyamoto & Mr. Kenji Moriyama & Ryota Nakatani & Luis-Felipe Zanna, 2021. "For the Benefit of All: Fiscal Policies and Equity-Efficiency Trade-offs in the Age of Automation," IMF Working Papers 2021/187, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Fossen, Frank M. & Sorgner, Alina, 2022. "New digital technologies and heterogeneous wage and employment dynamics in the United States: Evidence from individual-level data," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    4. Laura Barbieri & Chiara Mussida & Mariacristina Piva & Marco Vivarelli, 2019. "Testing the employment impact of automation, robots and AI: A survey and some methodological issues," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Politica Economica dipe0006, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    5. Sasaki, Hiroaki & Hagiwara, Takefumi & Pham, Huong & Fukatani, Noriki & Ogawa, Shogo & Okahara, Naoto, 2021. "How Does Automation Affect Economic Growth and Income Distribution in a Two-Class Economy?," MPRA Paper 106481, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Elizabeth Fisher & Michael A. Flynn & Preethi Pratap & Jay A. Vietas, 2023. "Occupational Safety and Health Equity Impacts of Artificial Intelligence: A Scoping Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(13), pages 1-28, June.
    7. Rammer, Christian & Fernández, Gastón P. & Czarnitzki, Dirk, 2022. "Artificial intelligence and industrial innovation: Evidence from German firm-level data," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(7).
    8. Sasaki, Hiroaki, 2021. "Automation Technology, Economic Growth, and Income Distribution in an Economy with Dynasties and Overlapping Generations," MPRA Paper 105446, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Erik Brynjolfsson & Xiang Hui & Meng Liu, 2019. "Does Machine Translation Affect International Trade? Evidence from a Large Digital Platform," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(12), pages 5449-5460, December.
    10. Colin Wessendorf & Alexander Kopka & Dirk Fornahl, 2021. "The impact of the six European Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) on regional knowledge creation," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2127, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Sep 2021.
    11. Oliver Falck & Johannes Koenen, 2020. "Rohstoff „Daten“: Volkswirtschaflicher Nutzen von Datenbereitstellung – eine Bestandsaufnahme," ifo Forschungsberichte, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 113.
    12. DUERNECKER Georg & SANCHEZ MARTINEZ Miguel, 2021. "Structural change and productivity growth in the European Union: Past, present and future," JRC Working Papers on Territorial Modelling and Analysis 2021-09, Joint Research Centre.
    13. Andrew Green & Lucas Lamby, 2025. "The Characteristics of the Artificial Intelligence Workforce across OECD Countries," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 68(2), pages 541-568, June.
    14. Vasiliki Koniakou, 2023. "From the “rush to ethics” to the “race for governance” in Artificial Intelligence," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 71-102, February.
    15. Andrea Szalavetz, 2019. "Artificial Intelligence-Based Development Strategy in Dependent Market Economies - Any Room amidst Big Power Rivalry?," Central European Business Review, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2019(4), pages 40-54.
    16. Thomas Gries & Wim Naudé, 2022. "Modelling artificial intelligence in economics," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 56(1), pages 1-13, December.
    17. Fossen, Frank M. & Sorgner, Alina, 2021. "Digitalization of work and entry into entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 548-563.
    18. Mario Benassi & Elena Grinza & Francesco Rentocchini & Laura Rondi, 2022. "Patenting in 4IR technologies and firm performance [Robots and jobs: evidence from US labor markets]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 31(1), pages 112-136.
    19. Charles M. A. Clark & Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan, 2020. "Artificial Intelligence and Human Flourishing," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 79(4), pages 1307-1344, September.
    20. Selale Tuzel & Miao Ben Zhang, 2021. "Economic Stimulus at the Expense of Routine‐Task Jobs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(6), pages 3347-3399, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • M53 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Training
    • M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:108817. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.