Pregledni rad
Disappearance of Work? The Scope and Forms of Employment at the Dawn of the Information Age
Teo MATKOVIĆ
Sažetak
Work is a social construct – one that performs a socially identified
and normalized function in the (re)production of the social whole.
Despite the fear of the disappearance of work due to informatisation,
on the global level the number of jobs is growing. However,
in the break with the recent industrial past, there has been a
(re)emergence of contingent forms of employment on the labour
market. Central to them is the doctrine of flexibility – which impacts
on time, place, stability and the social contract under which
work takes place. Within the new division of labour, in economies
where creativity, information processing and in-person services
are considered the main source of growth, work based on the
analysis of symbols and emotional labour is ever gaining in importance.
Comparative analysis of the scope and forms of employment,
mostly based on Labour Force Survey data, led to the
following conclusions. In the first world countries there is a general
increase in the employment level, accompanied by a
moderate rise in non-standard forms of employment. In the
transition countries, the chain of crises and shrinking of labour
markets led to an increase of non-standard forms of employment,
accompanied by a decrease in total employment. Croatia
followed a similar pattern. After a long period of politically sponsored
growth, since 1990 there has been a steady decline in the
numbers of employed and activity rates, as well as an increase in
unemployment rate. During that period, work in non-formal
economy, self-employment and temporary and fixed-time contracts
have become more common. Such developments may
lead to the disappearance of human rights through the transformation of work, exclusion of large parts of the population,
and separation of the economy from society. But new production
forces also provide possibility for the improvement of the world of
work, and for the implementation of the multi-activity concept.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
16119
URI
Datum izdavanja:
30.4.2004.
Posjeta: 2.355 *