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Private services: polarised, automated or what? How to find the high road
Contribution to Panel 4 “Private services” of the ETUI Conference “Shaping the new world of work”, Brussels, June 27-29, 2016
Ursula Holtgrewe ([email protected])ZSI – Centre for Social Innovation
What are services about?
» > 75% of employment in Europe and a disproportionate partof employment growth after 2000
» BUT polarised in „lovely“ and „lousy“ jobs(in EU, wages rather than skills, also job quality)
» Services deal with uncertainties and complexity» Customers» Complex processes of value creation and their prerequisites» Also social integration and challenges of modern societies
» Require smart, circumspect work and collaboration – on all skill levels!
Centre for Social Innovation
Trends in services
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Private Services
Innovation
Costpressure bycompaniesand clients Commodity
traps
automation Outsourcing offshoring
Precariousand „new“
employmentforms
Automation
» Consensus: losses in transport, logistics, admin, clerical but uncertainty otherwise
» Retail, financial services: end of growth» Robots in facility management, care,
hospitality???» Professions??? Big Data etc. in some functions» BUT likely incomplete – coordination,
collaboration, meta-services, „last mile“ andcustomer contact
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Outsourcing and Offshoring
»Well beyond established expectations»„fine-slicing the value chain“»No secure „core“ competencies»AGAIN: Question of coordination and
collaboration (say, Berlin or Vienna airports)
»Increased competition and permanent eveluation of workers/units
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Precarious and „new“ forms of employment
» „hyperflexible employment“ such as zero-hourscontracts
» Ever-leaner organisations, removal ofdowntime, pressure on staffing levels
» Outsourced replacements» Work „on tap“ → platforms» „anything but“ real work: for pocket money, for
love, for access to a tight labour market» Technically embedded power asymmetry
between workers and clients/users
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Policy answers and their limitations
» Skill upgrading - Yes, but:» Fatalism towards low-skilled
and „invisible“ skills» attention to work organisation
and job quality» Unconventional transitions ?
Say, from automation-pronework into IT as „power user“
» The dilemma: high-productivity KIBS unlikely toprovide employment for all
» Job creation – not veryimaginative
» Commission focus reiteratespolarisation
» Needed: dedicated attention toprofessionalisation in newmarkets
» European integration anddigital agenda
» Risk of over-favouringstandardised, automation-pronebusiness models(Walmartisation?)
» More imagination and creationof sustainable variety in servicepolicies
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