Facing up to the end of work as we know it

As increased levels of automation and the ubiquity of digital platforms result in changes in the job market, there will be a breakdown in the middle class, possibly unleashing a new era of class rivalry, reports Jean Pisani-Ferry

IN 1983, the American economist and Nobel laureate Wassily Leontief made what was then a startling prediction. Machines, he said, are likely to replace human labour much in the same way that the tractor replaced the horse.

Today, with some 200m people worldwide out of work — 30m more than in 2008 — Leontief’s words no longer seem as outlandish as they once did. Indeed, there can be little doubt that technology is in the process of completely transforming the global labour market.