L'impatto delle nuove tecnologie sulle forme di lavoro: una prospettiva europea

This paper focuses on the role of knowledge within the process of growth and job creation in the European Union. Many features of the so-called knowledge-based economy are connected with the increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICT), that radically changes the conditions for the production and distribution of knowledge as well as its coupling to the production system. Technological change not only stimulates investment in physical capital but also brings to knowledge accumulation: human skills are required to implement, maintain, adapt and use technologies embodied in physical capital. Indeed, as new technologies become more widespread, certain skills may be less in demand--because many tasks once carried out manually are now performed by automated equipment--while the demand for workers able to maintain, program, and develop these sophisticated technologies rise. There is therefore concern that technological change may cause unemployment as the result of a mismatch between the demand for labour and the various skills of workers; in this way it may also increase the polarisation of society by widening the gap in income and employment opportunities between those whose skills have been displaced by new technology and those who create and use it.