Technology and Employment Issues

Abstract

Technology bargaining will become a critical issue in the late 1980s and will intensify through the 1990s, when computers and telecommunications technology converge into microelectronic networks, and impact severely on organisational structures, processes, products, occupations and employment. Given rapid economic growth, the associated problems will be largely problems of adjustment only; but, in the absence of adequate growth relative to the growth in the labour force, the problem of inadequate employment opportunities will be added to the adjustment problems. Whether the problems are adjustment problems only, or they are adjustment and employment problems, they concern employees and their organisations; and as they become increasingly critical, they can be expected to be moved up the agenda for discussions with management and governments.

Parts of this chapter are also discussed in the author’s book on Computer Technology and Employment: Retrospect and Prospect (London: Macmillan, 1983), and in the article “The Attitude of Trade Unions Towards Tech?nological Changes”, Relations Industrielles, 38 (1983) pp. 104–18.