Institut Montaigne  – « Le numérique modifie directement les modalités de recrutement et de recherche d’emploi. » Jean Bassères, directeur général de Pôle emploi –  publié  le 26 septembre 2017 dans  dans  Emploi / Entreprise

pole-emploi-recrutement-numerique.png

La réforme du Code du travail est amenée à fluidifier le marché du travail. Cependant, l’ambition du gouvernement consiste plutôt à adapter le cadre législatif aux transformations provoquées par la révolution numérique. Comment ces mutations affectent-elles les missions de Pôle emploi, l’opérateur public de référence sur la sécurisation des parcours professionnels ? Éléments de réponse par Jean Bassères, son directeur général.

La révolution numérique transforme profondément le marché du travail et notamment la relation des individus à l’emploi. Quelle est votre vision de ces évolutions ?

Le développement du numérique a plusieurs conséquences pour l’activité de Pôle emploi. En premier lieu, il modifie directement les modalités de recrutement et de recherche d’emploi par l’accès plus simple et plus rapide qu’il permet à une information beaucoup plus vaste. Mais il découle de cela au moins deux autres effets, indirects et plus complexes : l’élargissement des opportunités professionnelles, avec des aspirations individuelles et des possibilités de reconversion plus vastes (qui peuvent notamment s’appuyer sur les nouveaux modes de formation permis par le numérique), d’une part ; la possibilité d’améliorer l’adéquation entre les profils des candidats et les besoins exprimés par les recruteurs, d’autre part. Cette opportunité nécessite toutefois d’affiner les diagnostics et de renforcer les compétences, par exemple par la formation. Pour Pôle emploi, acteur du service public, ces évolutions interrogent notre propre mode de fonctionnement. Elles constituent un formidable défi qui nous conduit à innover en permanence, à développer de nouveaux services en nous appuyant sur nos start-up internes, en incubant d’autres start-up, en stimulant l’innovation et en organisant des challenges, pour apporter des réponses concrètes aux demandeurs d’emploi et, plus largement, à l’ensemble des actifs et aux recruteurs.

Le numérique transforme également l’approche de notre métier. À la faveur de cette transformation, nos conseillers ont pu réinvestir pleinement leur fonction d’accompagnement. Cette mission demeure essentielle et s’effectue de concert avec le déploiement des services numériques. La dématérialisation de certaines fonctions ou étapes du parcours du demandeur d’emploi, comme l’inscription et la demande d’indemnisation qui se font désormais intégralement en ligne, nous a ainsi permis de redéployer des agents vers des missions de conseil en emploi et d’augmenter de 15 points le temps consacré à l’accompagnement par les conseillers.

Pôle emploi est un acteur essentiel de la sécurisation des parcours professionnels, notamment pour ce qui concerne la formation professionnelle. Qu’attendez-vous des réformes annoncées par le gouvernement en la matière ?

Le plan d’investissement dans les compétences annoncé par le gouvernement concernera notamment Pôle emploi. Nous nous sommes déjà fortement investis dans la mise en œuvre du « Plan 500 000 formations supplémentaires » en 2016 et de son prolongement en 2017. Cet effort de formation sans précédent constitue une réponse adaptée au besoin croissant de qualification exprimé par les demandeurs d’emploi, notamment les plus éloignés de l’emploi, au regard des évolutions rapides du marché du travail. La qualité du conseil apporté par Pôle emploi et l’intérêt des formations suivies ont été confirmés par le niveau de satisfaction très élevé concernant la formation et l’aide apportée par Pôle emploi : 87,5 % des demandeurs d’emploi qui ont terminé leur formation en sont très ou assez satisfaits.

Plus généralement, l’investissement dans les compétences est à la fois la clé d’une entrée réussie sur le marché du travail pour les jeunes et une condition essentielle de la sécurisation des parcours professionnels sur le long terme. Cet investissement assure en effet l’adaptation des compétences individuelles à l’évolution permanente et de plus en plus rapide des métiers. Il doit s’inscrire dans la durée, en dotant chaque actif, quel que soit son statut, des moyens de se former tout au long de sa carrière.

 

« Le travail est l’avenir de l’homme » de Nicolas Bouzou – Économiste et chroniqueur à l’Express- Edition de l’Observatoire

Résultat de recherche d'images

C’est une ode au travail, l’auteur pointe du doigt l’irrationalité qui est mise en avant par les tenants de la fin du travail ou sa raréfaction ou le revenu universel. Le travail pour lui est profondément humain. Les animaux ne travaillent pas, ils vivent, cherchent de la nourriture, jouent et dorment, mais ils ne construisent pas un monde différent de la nature.

Le travail est le propre de la condition humaine, il évolue avec nous. Nous construisons et fabriquons des objets qui vont nous accompagner dans la transformation du monde. Ce qui explique que le travail change car notre besoin aussi change.

Ceux qui parlent de la fin du travail construisent et confortent leurs idées sur l’étude de 2013 menée par Carl Frey et Michael Osborne de  l’Université d’Oxford, selon la quelle 47% des emplois seront automatisés à l’horizon de 2034 aux états unis, tout en faisant remarquer que ce sont les emplois routiniers qui sont les premiers concernés ce que les économistes dénommaient « le progrès technique biaisé ». Les propos de JimYongKim directeur de la Banque Mondiale ciblant les pays nouvellement industrialisés et concluant que les deux tiers des emplois pourraient être détruits à cause de l’automatisation.ont aussi apporté de l’eau à leurs moulins. Force est de constater que les évolutions technologiques récentes comme l’intelligence artificielle conjuguées avec  une accumulation de données sans précédent(le big data) permettent d’automatiser des métiers moins routiniers qui concernent les classes moyennes. Ce ne sont plus les métiers d’en bas qui sont visés mais ceux du milieu. Cependant un peu de précaution est nécessaire, il suffirait que la création d’emploi nouveau puisse compenser la perte des anciens métiers, ce qui laisserait dire que théoriquement la destruction des emplois routiniers n’impactent pas sur le chômage et n’est pas un problème macro économique. Une politique économique saine doit libérer les créations d’emplois et non entraver les destructions. Les économistes du travail ont tendance à dire que la destruction des emplois constitue un signe de bonne santé économique et de progrès.

Cette étude oxfordienne fut elle de qualité, toutefois, elle entretien une confusion entre taches et métier. La technologie peut avoir trois conséquences sur le travail :

  • – Elle peut remplacer totalement un emploi, parce qu’elle l’automatise. C’est le cas des liftiers aux états unis depuis les années 1950.
  • Elle peut faire disparaitre des tâches à l’intérieur d’un métier qui survit, les secrétaires ne font plus de sténographie mais organise des agendas, accueillent des clients et s’occupent de l’administration générale, on les appelle des office managers. Les concierges n’ouvrent plus la porte des immeubles mais veillent à entretenir un climat de vie agréable, ce qu’aucune technologie ne fera jamais.
  • Elle peut faire disparaître un produit et les métiers qui lui sont associés, l’automobile a tué les métiers liés aux fiacres et l’électricité a signé la mort des allumeurs de réverbères. Il n’existe plus de fabricants de machines à écrire. C’est le cœur de la théorie schumpétérienne de la destruction créatrice.

L’histoire nous montre que la majorité des emplois ne sont que partiellement automatisables. L’étude de McKinsey Global Institute sur 46 pays représentant 80% de la force de travail mondiale a trouvé  que moins de 5% étaient susceptible d’être entièrement automatisés et que 60% comprenaient des tâches automatisables. Quand le remplacement par la machine est total, le nombre d’emploi dans la profession diminue mécaniquement, ainsi les poinçonneurs et les lavandières ont totalement disparu de nos villes. Ce n’est pas le cas, lorsque seule une partie des taches est remplacée par l’automatisation. L’emploi peut diminuer ou augmenter, ainsi l’introduction du métier à tisser n’a pas réduit le nombre de tisserands au XIXème siècle. L’automatisation permet des gains de productivité qui permettent de baisser les prix, exemple les vêtements. Une demande élastique au prix, entraîne une augmentation de la demande, la technologie permet d’attirer des nouveaux consommateurs et l’activité se développe entraînant l’ouverture de nouvelles usines et magasins.

L’auteur

Nicolas Bouzou.jpgNicolas Bouzou, est un essayiste français libéral spécialisé dans l’économie. Il est diplômé de l’université Paris-Dauphine et a un master de finance de l’IEP de Paris. Il a été pendant six ans analyste en chef de l’institut de prévisions Xerfi. Il a depuis 2006 fondé sa propre entreprise, Asterès, une société d’analyse économique et de conseil.

 

 

Institut Montaigne – Marché du travail : après la flexibilité, passons à la sécurité Par Marc-Antoine Authier le jeudi 7 septembre 2017 publié dans Emploi / Entreprise

marche-travail-flexibilite-securite.png

Le président de la République a placé la lutte contre le chômage au cœur de son projet de réforme pour le quinquennat. Et pour cause : en France, le taux de chômage est resté supérieur à 8 % pendant plus de trois décennies. Comme le démontre Bertrand Martinot dans son ouvrage « Pour en finir avec le chômage », paru en septembre 2015 chez Fayard, il est illusoire d’expliquer ce phénomène par des causes conjoncturelles. Notre incapacité latente à réformer le marché du travail révèle en creux notre incapacité à entreprendre des réformes structurelles.

Les ordonnances dont le contenu a été présenté le jeudi 31 août par le Premier ministre et la ministre du Travail s’inscrivent dans une démarche de transformation structurelle. Elles visent à donner plus de flexibilité et plus de souplesses aux entreprises afin de restaurer leur confiance et leur donner à nouveau l’envie d’investir et d’embaucher en France. Les mesures, essentiellement techniques et opérationnelles, n’auront pas un impact direct et immédiat sur le chômage.

Tourner la page des ordonnances…

Le premier volet de la transformation de notre marché du travail a donc concerné la modification du Code du travail, quelques mois seulement après l’arrivée au pouvoir du nouvel exécutif. Qu’on approuve ou non leur contenu, on peut saluer l’initiative ambitieuse du gouvernement qui a su agir rapidement par le moyen des ordonnances. Le débat politique a eu lieu lors de la campagne électorale, le débat technique lors de la concertation avec les partenaires sociaux.

Chaque ordonnance fera maintenant l’objet d’un projet de loi de ratification soumis au Parlement dans le courant du mois d’octobre. Dès lors que le gouvernement en a rendu public le contenu élaboré après trois mois de concertation avec les organisations syndicales et patronales, les textes n’évolueront plus, ou seulement à la marge. C’est dans ce contexte législatif que s’inscriront les deux manifestations d’opposition à ces mesures, organisées par la CGT le 12 septembre, d’une part, et par La France Insoumise le 23 septembre, d’autre part.

… pour préparer la réforme de la formation professionnelle

Les réformes qui introduisent plus de flexibilité sur le marché du travail ne constituent qu’un aspect d’une réforme structurelle du marché du travail. Il est aujourd’hui nécessaire de donner aux individus des contreparties concrètes de cette fluidification de l’emploi. Il s’agit d’une mesure indispensable sur le plan économique pour que les individus puissent augmenter leur employabilité tout au long de leur parcours professionnel. Elle l’est également sur le plan politique pour que soient acceptées les réformes visant à flexibiliser le marché du travail.

Les ordonnances seront définitivement adoptées en même temps que les réformes de la formation professionnelle seront engagées. Elles devront s’accompagner d’un plan d’investissements de près de 15 milliards d’euros. C’est désormais un nouveau chapitre de la réforme du marché du travail qui s’ouvre. Il concernera notamment la sécurisation des parcours professionnels, c’est à dire la formation continue tout au long de la vie et l’ouverture du régime d’assurance-chômage à toutes les catégories d’actifs. Il faut dès à présent engager un dialogue avec les parties prenantes de cette réforme pour comprendre les enjeux d’un tel chantier dans leur complexité.

Concilier mobilité et sécurité

C’est toute l’ambition des Entretiens de la Cohésion sociale, que l’Institut Montaigne organise pour la sixième année consécutive en partenariat avec August Debouzy et Entreprise&Personnel. L’édition 2017, qui se tiendra le 12 septembre à la Maison de la Chimie, sera consacrée à ce nouveau chapitre de la réforme, sur le thème “parcours professionnels ou parcours du combattant : comment concilier mobilité et sécurité ?”. Elle visera à engager un dialogue sur l’appropriation des nouveaux outils par les acteurs du terrain, au premier rang desquels les individus et les entreprises. Hasard du calendrier, ils se tiendront en même temps que la première manifestation d’opposition à la réforme du Code du Travail…

 

World Economic Forum – These jobs are set to disappear fastest in the US – Written by Gus Lubin, Senior Correspondent, Business Insider published in collaboration with Business Insider.

jobs are set to disappear.jpg

America is going to see some huge employment shifts in the next decade, as in past decades, thanks above all to technology.

The biggest losers? Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks, whose ranks are projected to shrink by 149,000 from 2014 to 2024.

We pulled the 12 jobs with the largest total declines in Bureau of Labor Statistics projections (see our past coverage for largest percent declines). Keep scrolling to see who’s losing the future.

  1. Computer programmers

They write and test code that allows computer applications and software programs to function properly. Their jobs are at risk primarily because of global outsourcing.

Median annual pay: $80,000

US employment in 2014: 329,000

Projected US employment in 2024: 302,000

Projected decline: 27,000 (8%)

  1. Molding, coremaking, and casting machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

They set up or operate metal or plastic molding, casting, or coremaking machines to mold or cast metal or thermoplastic parts or products. Their jobs are at risk as companies switch to computer and robot-controlled machines.

Median annual pay: $29,000

US employment in 2014: 130,000

Projected US employment in 2024: 97,000

Projected decline: 32,000 (25%)

  1. Switchboard operators, including answering service

They operate telephone business systems equipment or switchboards to relay incoming, outgoing, and interoffice calls. Their jobs are at risk due to increased automation and online services.

Median annual pay: $27,000

US employment in 2014: 112,000

Projected US employment in 2024: 76,000

Projected decline: 37,000 (33%)

  1. Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic

They set up or operate machines to saw, cut, shear, notch, bend, or straighten metal or plastic materials. Their jobs are at risk as companies switch to computer and robot-controlled machines.

Median annual pay: $31,000

US employment in 2014: 192,000

Projected US employment in 2024: 153,000

Projected decline: 40,000 (21%)

  1. Postal service mail sorters, processors, and processing machine operators

They prepare incoming and outgoing mail for distribution at post offices and mail processing centers. Their jobs are at risk due to automatic mail sorting technology and the switch to online services.

Median annual pay: $57,000

US employment in 2014: 118,000

Projected US employment in 2024: 78,000

Projected decline: 40,000 (34%)

  1. Tellers

They are responsible for accurately processing routine transactions at a bank. Their jobs are at risk due to the rise of online banking and mobile apps.

Median annual pay: $26,000

US employment in 2014: 521,000

Projected US employment in 2024: 481,000

Projected decline: 40,000 (8%)

  1. Sewing machine operators

They operate or tend sewing machines to join, reinforce, decorate, or perform related sewing operations in the manufacture of garment or nongarment products. Their jobs are at risk due to increased automation and outsourcing.

Median annual pay: $23,000

US employment in 2014: 154,000

Projected US employment in 2024: 112,000

Projected decline: 42,000 (27%)

  1. Farmworkers and laborers, crop, nursery, and greenhouse

They perform numerous tasks related to growing and harvesting grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and other crops. Their jobs are at risk as farms consolidate and adopt technology that raises output per farmer.

Median annual pay: $20,000

US employment in 2014: 470,000

Projected US employment in 2024: 427,000

Projected decline: 43,000 (9%)

  1. Executive secretaries and executive administrative assistants

They perform clerical and administrative duties. Their jobs are at risk as technology automates or simplifies much of their work.

Median annual pay: $53,000

US employment in 2014: 777,000

Projected US employment in 2024: 732,000

Projected decline: 45,000 (6%)

  1. Postal service mail carriers

They deliver mail to homes and businesses in cities, towns, and rural areas. Their jobs are at risk due to automated sorting technology and the switch to online services.

Median annual pay: $58,000

US employment in 2014: 297,000

Projected US employment in 2024: 219,000

Projected decline: 78,000 (26%)

  1. Cooks, fast food

They prepare a limited selection of menu items in fast-food restaurants. Their jobs are at risk due to increased automation.

Median annual pay: $19,000

US employment in 2014: 524,000

Projected US employment in 2024: 444,000

Projected decline: 80,000 (15%)

  1. Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks

They record financial transactions, update statements, and check financial records for accuracy. Their jobs are at risk because of technological changes that automate and otherwise simplify this work.

Median annual pay: $37,000

US employment in 2014: 1,760,000

Projected US employment in 2024: 1,612,000

Projected decline: 149,000 (8%)

 

Tribune – Pour une fusion des institutions représentant le personnel – MARDI 5 SEPTEMBRE 2017 JACQUES BARTHÉLEMY ET GILBERT CETTE – LES ECHOS | LE 26/05/2017

 

Le droit du travail est protecteur ou il n’est pas. Le droit du travail plus contractuel qui se dessine peu à peu est davantage à même de concilier efficacité économique, ce qui favorise l’emploi, et protection des travailleurs, un droit légal hypertrophié étant largement méconnu, donc incomplètement appliqué. Mais il ne saurait se limiter au « renversement de la hiérarchie des normes ». Est notamment indispensable, du fait de cette architecture nouvelle, la prise en compte, également, pour la définition de l’intérêt de l’entreprise, de celui de la collectivité du personnel. Donner de la consistance juridique à la collectivité de travail est donc une exigence d’intérêt général. Cela ne peut se concrétiser que par l’accroissement du rôle du comité d’entreprise, instrument de l’expression collective du personnel.

Conforter le rôle du comité d’entreprise, c’est en faire l’équivalent du « Betriebsrat  » allemand, qui est en quelque sorte le « conseil d’administration de la collectivité du personnel « , contribuant au fonctionnement démocratique de l’entreprise, en parallèle avec le directoire de la société. Dans ces conditions, les membres du personnel siégeant au conseil de surveillance ne devraient pas être désignés par les syndicats, mais être issus du comité d’entreprise, dont, de ce fait, l’employeur doit être exclu. S’il en est en France le président, c’est parce qu’à l’origine (en 1945) étaient surtout mises en avant ses attributions dans l’ordre social, dont l’intérêt est moins important aujourd’hui que celles d’ordre économique. Cela induit que, dans certains domaines où sont susceptibles d’être affectés des droits fondamentaux, le comité dispose d’un droit de veto. Ce pourrait être le cas pour les questions susceptibles de mettre en cause le droit à l’emploi, voire le droit à l’employabilité et le droit à la santé.

Les institutions représentatives du personnel sont le moyen de donner de la vigueur aux droits collectifs du personnel. Mais s’arc-bouter, au motif que ce serait une régression sociale, sur la coexistence du comité d’entreprise, du CHSCT et des délégués du personnel n’a pas de sens. Au demeurant, jusqu’en 1982, le CHSCT n’était qu’une commission du CE et il peut très bien le redevenir sans affecter pour autant la politique de prévention et de santé au travail. De même, les délégués du personnel n’ont plus qu’une fonction mineure depuis qu’a été créé le délégué syndical en 1968, et que les attributions du CE dans l’ordre professionnel se sont accrues.

Mieux vaut donc accroître les moyens du CE et supprimer les autres institutions (CHSCT et DP). L’efficacité de la représentativité et de la protection des travailleurs ne dépend ni du nombre d’institutions ni du volume des délégués et des heures de délégation. La juxtaposition actuelle de ces institutions est complexe et coûteuse, elle n’existe à notre connaissance dans aucun autre pays développé et pénalise l’efficacité économique sans que sa performance protectrice ne soit avérée. Les esprits ont évolué, la loi Rebsamen en est la démonstration. Elle permet déjà par accord de rassembler les différentes IRP dans une institution unique.

La réforme programmée du droit du travail ne peut être efficace que si, en même temps que généraliser la supplétivité de la norme légale au-delà des principes à l’égard du tissu conventionnel et celle de la convention de branche à l’égard de l’accord d’entreprise au-delà de ce qui concrétise l’ordre public professionnel, est consacrée la personnalité morale de la collectivité du personnel. Ses intérêts peuvent alors être aisément conjugués avec ceux de la collectivité des détenteurs du capital, permettant ainsi de donner du sens à l’intérêt de l’entreprise. Autant dire que l’unicité d’institutions grâce à l’extension des pouvoirs du comité d’entreprise contribue à concilier efficacité économique et protection des travailleurs.

Jacques Barthélemy et Gilbert Cette

Jacques Barthélemy est avocat-conseil en droit social. Gilbert Cette est professeur associé à l’université d’Aix-Marseille. Ils sont les auteurs de « Travailler au XXIe siècle – L’ubérisation de l’économie ? » (Odile Jacob) en 2017.

C’est un avis fort intéressant.

World Economic Forum – Americans are still haunted by the recession. These 4 charts show why – Written by Editorial Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics, in collaboration with Business Insider.

recession

Expectations are everything, especially in economics.

That’s why a distinct lack of progress in a few basic measures of economic progress, particularly relative to pre-crisis expectations, has left many Americans questioning how much they have personally benefitted from the economic recovery.

A new report from the Roosevelt Institute, a liberal think tank in Washington, highlights a number of ways in which « the recovery since 2009 is, in a sense, a statistical illusion. »

The study finds the nation’s total economic output, its gross domestic product, « remains about 15% below the pre-recession trend, a larger gap than at the bottom of the recession. » The first chart below shows that lag, while the second offers insights into just how badly the crisis dented expectations about the future.

recession 1.png

recession 2.png

Strong employment gains in recent months have brought the jobless rate down to a historically-low 4.3%. However, this decline has not been accompanied by rising incomes or consumer prices, generally associated with a sustainable economic boom. Some Federal Reserve policymakers have found this trend puzzling, while many labor economists point to underlying weaknesses in the job market, including high levels of underemployment and long-term joblessness, as drags on income.

Stagnant wages amid rising profits have meant that the wage share in US national income has fallen from 63% to 57% in the last 15 years, according to the report.

recession 3

« It is impossible for the wage share to ever rise if the central bank will not allow a period of ‘excessive’ wage growth, » writes J.W. Mason, who authored the report. « A rise in the wage share necessarily requires a period in which wages rise faster than would be consistent with longterm macroeconomic stability. »

In other words, if Fed officials tighten monetary policy at the first sign of wage increases, they will never allow the imbalances that have built up, including deep income disparities, to be torn down. Average hourly earnings rose just 2.5% on a yearly basis in July, nothing to write home about and certainly not enough to begin the ground lost over the last decade and more.

Business investment, which is key to long-run economic growth, has also been dismal during the now eight-year expansion.

« There is no precedent for the weakness of investment in the current cycle. Nearly ten years later, real investment spending remains less than 10% above its 2007 peak, » Mason writes.

« This is slow even relative to the anemic pace of GDP growth, and extremely low by historical standards. In the three previous [economic] cycles lasting that long, real investment spending had increased anywhere from 30% to 80%. Even shorter cycles saw substantially greater investment growth. »

recession 4.png

Finally, Mason looks at whether the economy is at risk of running hot, generating inflation, which central bank officials cite to justify interest rate increases. The Fed has raised interest rates three times since December 2015 to a range of 1% to 1.25%.

« On the contrary, we argue, while a myopic focus on one or another data series might support a story of binding supply constraints, the behavior of the economy as a whole is much more consistent with a situation of depressed demand—an extended recession, » the report concludes.

« The overall picture also makes it unclear what actual danger is posed by overheating in the conventional sense. Most of the obvious costs of overheating — higher inflation, higher interest rates, a rising wage share — would be desirable under current circumstances. »

World Economic Forum – Protectionism won’t protect jobs. Here’s what will. – Written by Kenneth Rogoff

protectionism.jpg

As US and European political leaders fret about the future of quality jobs, they would do well to look at the far bigger problems faced by developing Asia – problems that threaten to place massive downward pressure on global wages. In India, where per capita income is roughly a tenth that of the United States, more than ten million people per year are leaving the countryside and pouring into urban areas, and they often cannot find work even as chaiwalas, much less as computer programmers. The same angst that Americans and Europeans have about the future of jobs is an order of magnitude higher in Asia.

Should India aim to follow the traditional manufacturing export model that Japan pioneered and that so many others, including China, have followed? Where would that lead if, over the next couple of decades, automation is going to make most such jobs obsolete?

There is, of course, the service sector, where 80% of the population in advanced economies works, and where India’s outsourcing sector still tops the world. Unfortunately, there, too, the path ahead is anything but smooth. Automated calling systems already have supplanted a substantial part of the global phone center business, and many routine programming jobs are also losing ground to computers.

China’s economic progress may have been the big story of the last 30 years, but it struggles with similar challenges. While China is far more urbanized than India, it, too, is still trying to bring ten million people a year into its cities. Between jobs lost to automation and to lower-wage competitors such as Vietnam and Sri Lanka, integrating new workers is becoming increasingly difficult.

Recently, the rise in global protectionism has made this difficult situation worse, as epitomized by the decision of Foxconn (a major supplier to Apple) to invest $10 billion in a new factory in Wisconsin. Admittedly, the 13,000 new jobs in the United States is a drop in the bucket compared to the 20 million (or more) that India and China must create each year, or even compared to the two million that the US needs.

At the margin, the US and Europe might have some scope to make trade fairer, as Trump says he will do. For example, many Chinese steel plants have state-of-the-art pollution controls, but these can be switched off to save costs. When the result is that excess output is dumped at cheap prices into world markets, Western countries are fully justified in taking countermeasures.

Unfortunately, the long history of trade protectionism is that it rarely takes the form of a surgical strike. Far more often, the main beneficiaries are the rich and politically connected, while the losers are consumers who pay higher prices.

Countries that go too far in closing themselves off to foreign competition eventually lose their edge, with innovation, jobs, and growth suffering. Brazil and India, for example, have historically suffered from inward-looking trade policies, though both have become more open in recent years.

Another problem is that most Western economies have long since become deeply intertwined in global supply chains. Even the Trump administration had to reconsider its plan to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement when it finally realized that a lot of US imports from Mexico have substantial US content. Erecting high tariff barriers might cost as many US jobs as Mexican jobs. And, of course, if the US were to raise its import tariffs sharply, a large part of the costs would be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Trade will surely increasingly permeate the service sector, too. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (named after the eighteenth-century chess-playing machine which actually had a person cleverly hidden inside) is an example of a new platform that allows buyers to contract very small specific tasks (for example, programming or data transcription) at third-world wage rates. Amazon’s clever slogan is “artificial artificial intelligence.”

Even if protectionists could shut down outsourcing of tasks, what would the cost be? To be sure, online service platforms do need to be regulated, as early experience with Uber has demonstrated. But, given the massive number of new jobs that India and China need to create every year, and with the Internet remaining highly permeable, it is folly to think advanced economies can clamp down tightly on service exports.

So how should countries deal with the relentless advance of technology and trade? For the foreseeable future, improving infrastructure and education can achieve a great deal. While the rest of the world floundered in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, China continued to extend its vast logistical and supply chains.

In a world where people are likely to have to change jobs frequently and sometimes radically, wholesale changes in adult education are needed, mainly effected through online learning. Last but not least, countries need to institute stronger redistribution though taxes and transfers. Traditional populist trade policies, like those that Trump has espoused, have not worked well in the past, and are likely to perform even worse now.

The author

Kenneth Saul « Ken Rogoff » (born March 22, 1953) is an American economist and chess Grandmaster. He is the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Early in his career, Rogoff served as an economist at Kenneth_Rogoffthe International Monetary Fund (IMF), and at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He was the Charles and Marie Robertson Professor of International Affairs at Princeton University.

In 2002, He was in the spotlight because of a dispute with Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank and 2001 Nobel Prize winner. After Stiglitz criticized the IMF in his book, Globalization and Its Discontents, Rogoff replied in an open letter. His book This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, which he co-authored with Carmen Reinhart, was released in October 2009.

In The Curse of Cash, published in 2016, he urged that the United States phase out the 100-dollar bill, then the 50-dollar bill, then the 20-dollar bill, leaving only smaller denominations in circulation.

The World Economic Forum – Unemployment in Europe has fallen to its lowest level since 2009 – Written by Robin Bowman, Director, RJBMedia Ltd.

Unemployment.jpg

Unemployment in the Eurozone has now fallen to its lowest level since early 2009, as the single-currency area continues along a road of economic recovery one year after the Brexit vote rattled confidence in the bloc’s future.
In June this year, euro-area unemployment dropped to 9.1%, down from 9.2% the previous month, and from 10.1% in the same month in 2016. This pattern reflects a trend seen across the EU as a whole, where the jobless rate in June was 7.7%, down from 8.6% a year earlier, according to the latest Eurostat data.
“The encouraging news on job growth in Europe reflects the broader positive momentum we are seeing. In addition to the stronger economic data, the overall trust of citizens in the EU is on the rise as people feel more optimistic about the future,” said Martina Larkin, head of Europe at the World Economic Forum.
The latest Eurobarometer survey found that a majority of Europeans – or 56% – were optimistic about the future of the EU, an increase of six percentage points from autumn 2016. The most marked increase was in France, climbing 15 percentage points, potentially linked to the new President Emmanuel Macron’s pro-EU stance.
The robust recovery in the Eurozone’s employment market follows a trajectory that began in 2013 when the jobless rate peaked at 12.1%, five years after the banking crisis of 2008 sent shockwaves through the global economy.

Unemployment 1

While there are still currently some 18.7 million jobless people in the EU, this is down 2.4 million from the same month in 2016.
Those countries with the lowest unemployment rates in June were the Czech Republic (2.9%), Germany (3.8%) and Malta (4.1%). The highest rates of unemployment continued to be in Greece and Spain.

Unemployment 2

But it is generally those countries that suffered the most from the global downturn that have experienced the fastest falls in unemployment in the last three years. The best performers were Ireland, Greece and Spain, which saw the sharpest drop of all year-on-year from 19.9% to 17.1%.
Estonia was the only country to experience a rise in unemployment, up from 6.5% in June 2016, to 6.9% in June this year.
Since 2013, eight million new jobs have been created within the EU, restoring the number of those in work to pre-global financial-crisis levels: a little over 223 million people in the EU were in work in 2008, compared to 223.6 million in 2016.
But, while some countries have returned to pre-crisis levels of employment, notably Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden and the UK, others still have some way to go.
Changing landscape
The recovery has also led to a shift in the make-up of the employment landscape.
A report by the EU agency Eurofound highlights these changes and their consequences.
Among key findings are that most growth has been in low-paid and mid-paid jobs, which is consistent with a recovery driven by consumption.
More than 70% of jobs in the EU are now in services, and the recent growth in jobs here has been concentrated at the highest and lowest-wage ends of the sector.
There has been little growth in traditional blue-collar industrial jobs. While the sector has grown by 1.5 million jobs within the EU since 2013, the majority of these have been engineering, professional and managerial jobs at the highest end of the wage spectrum.
Newer members of the EU, those that have that joined since 2004, have gained the most from growth in this sector.
Across the EU, in many of the faster-growing parts of the economy, the proportion of older workers has increased significantly.
“Extended working lives and later retirement are as important in explaining recent employment growth as any resurgence of labour market dynamism,” according to Eurofound’s report, Occupational change and wage inequality: European Jobs Monitor 2017.
Another key trend is the creation of more part-time jobs, and where full-time, permanent jobs have been generated, they have disproportionately been within the top 20% of the income spectrum.

Unemployment 3.png

The biggest challenge for the region remains alarmingly high levels of youth unemployment – 16.7% in the EU and 18.7% in the Eurozone. Behind these average figures there is huge disparity between countries. Germany has a youth unemployment rate 6.7%, while in Italy it is 35.4%, in Spain the rate is 39.2%, and worst-affected Greece with 45.5%.
Yet, even among those countries worst affected, the trend is still downwards.
In June 2017, 3.7 million of those under 25 were jobless in the EU28, and of these, 2.6 million were in the euro area. That represents a fall compared to June 2016 of 586,000 in the EU28 and 399,000 in the Eurozone.
But, as the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2016-2017underlined, such high levels of unemployment, especially among the youth of the region, are “leaving large numbers of citizens behind”.
The report highlights the need for improvements in labour-market flexibility in many European countries over the coming years to meet this challenge. The key will be to strike a healthy balance between high labour-market efficiency and a strong social safety net.

Unemployment 4.png

The World Economic Forum – A Frenchman in Silicon Valley: France needs an innovation revolution – Written by Navi Radjou.

Frenchman in Silicon Valley.jpg

With Emmanuel Macron as president and his party winning a decisive majority in recent parliamentary elections, France’s ailing economy may finally receive a shot in the arm. Investors hope Macron can deliver on his promises to relax stringent labour laws and curb public spending. But the sad fact is even these ideas are not nearly radical enough to help France compete globally and win, in particular, in today’s digital economy.

France’s problems are well known: a heavy tax burden, intransigent unions and an uncontrollable public deficit. These are compounded by a lack of dynamism in its main European trading partners. But more than anything, France has a particular weakness when it comes to innovation ranking a dismal 15th in the 2017 survey of global innovation by the World Intellectual Property Organization, well behind Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, the US and the United Kingdom, which top the list.

Large French industrial firms spend heavily on R&D, but entrepreneurs and small businesses struggle to attract the capital to launch and scale new ventures. French engineers excel at producing highly sophisticated and expensive industrial products like nuclear power plants, high-speed trains and fighter jets. This kind of industrial innovation is increasingly outdated, as the source of corporate and national advantage shifts from physical products to digital platforms, meaning the likes of Facebook and Airbnb, which create, find and share knowledge, and connect consumers with goods and services.

Frenchman in Silicon Valley 1
As a Frenchman based in Silicon Valley, I have worked with companies in France for the past 25 years. It is frustrating to watch French engineers take years to develop a perfect product, rather than gradually improving it based on customer input, which is often received through digital platforms. I am baffled by the limited collaboration between French companies and universities and startups, when such links run deep in Silicon Valley, and to a lesser degree in rival countries like Britain.

Just as their industrial cousins struggle to compete, French companies focused on premium branded products have failed to grasp the new ways consumers behave. Since the 2007 recession, French consumers have become thriftier. In some ways this has helped a small handful of sharing economy start-ups, like ride-sharing app BlaBlaCar. The vast majority of mainstream French firms are struggling to engage with this turn towards sharing and frugality.

As a tech-savvy young leader, Macron personally understands this new digital world. But awareness isn’t enough. He needs a radical programme of changes, beginning with three important steps.

The sharing economy
Firstly, Macron must encourage French businesses to plug into the sharing economy, which is currently restricted to citizens directly sharing cars and apartments. PwC estimates that Europe’s sharing economy — dominated by consumer-to-consumer (C2C) transactions will grow from €28 billion today to €570 billion by 2025. France can go much further and pioneer business-to-business (B2B) sharing by building digital platforms that enable large firms and SMEs to become more efficient and innovative by sharing resources, ranging from waste, idle factory equipment and office space, to employees and even intellectual property (IP). B2B sharing could turbocharge the fourth industrial revolution.

There are pioneering models that France can follow. In Denmark’s Kalundborg Eco-Industrial Park, for example, several co-located companies exchange material waste, energy and water as an integrated ecosystem. Similarly, Dutch hospitals use FLOOW2, a B2B marketplace, to find and share idle medical equipment, staff and services, thus providing better care to more patients at a lower cost.

To encourage B2B sharing in France, Macron’s government needs to institute a comprehensive new framework that encourages the sharing of assets and personnel, probably including the deregulation of rules covering areas such as legal liability, taxation, IP protection and workers’ rights. If done well, France can shape and dominate the global B2B sharing market, potentially worth trillions of Euros, by creating demand for it and by developing the necessary digital platforms.

Regional innovation
Secondly, Macron needs to decentralize innovation. Paris has some elements of an innovation hub with a supportive mayor, top universities and an impressive new start-up campus, Station F. But other regions that could produce innovative tech clusters — such as Hauts-de-France, a former industrial region in the north that is transitioning to a waste-free, clean-tech-fuelled circular economy and the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in the south-west that is leading agricultural tech innovation in Europe — are being left behind for lack of support.

Such regions lack scientists and engineers, as well as innovation links between universities and companies, especially in high-demand areas like the Internet of Things, bioscience and clean-tech. Macron, who is proud of his provincial origins and a big advocate of greater regional autonomy, should set up a regional innovation development fund to help existing “pôles de compétitivité” (competitiveness clusters) become “pôles de compétences” (talent clusters).

Frugal innovation
Finally, Macron must position France as a global leader in frugal innovation, a disruptive way of creating high-quality products that are affordable and eco-friendly. A few French firms have led the way here, including the automaker Renault, which shook up the global car industry in 2004 by launching the $6,000 Dacia Logan and two years ago introduced the €3,500 Kwid in India. The European Commission recently published a landmark report highlighting the huge social value and vast economic potential of frugal innovation for European nations.

Macron could make France a global hub to invest, test and scale low-cost, eco-sound inventions for European and even developing markets. He could do so by asking French engineering and business schools to incorporate frugal innovation into their curriculum. Macron could also set challenges for entrepreneurs with prizes given to those who create disruptive frugal innovation in vital sectors, like food, energy and health. Known as “10x10x Grand Challenges” the winners will be projects that deliver at least 10 times greater value, but use 10 times fewer resources than existing solutions.

Macron is an ingenious political entrepreneur: he used innovative data-driven campaign tactics to win hearts and minds and got elected by a landslide as France’s youngest president. En Marche!, his one-year-old political organization, is still in start-up mode. But having disrupted the French political landscape, President Macron now needs to lead a French innovation revolution as well.

The author
Navi Radjou born 14 August 1970 is a French-American scholar,  he earned his MS degree in information systems from Ecole Centrale de Paris, and also attended the Yale School of Management. He is an innovation and leadership advisor based in SiliconNavi_Radjou Valley. He is former Vice-President at Forrester Research, a leading US-based technology research and consulting firm. At Forrester, he investigated how globalised innovation – with the rise of India and China as both a source and market for innovations – is driving new market structures and organizational models called « Global Innovation Networks ». During his tenure at Forrester, he advised senior executives around the world on technology-enabled best practices to drive collaborative innovation, global supply chain integration, and proactive customer service. He served as the Executive Director of the Centre for India & Global Business at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, where Jaideep Prabhu was the director.
At Forrester, Radjou published more than a hundred thought-leadership reports on business topics related to innovation and emerging markets. Based on his extensive field research in India he published in 2008 a ten-part report series titled « India: The Innovation Giant (Re)Awakens », which explores the innovative business models pioneered by large corporations and grassroots entrepreneurs in India. Radjou is co-author of Frugal Innovation published worldwide by The Economist in 2015. The book explains the principles, perspectives and techniques behind frugal innovation. He is also co-author of the international best-seller Jugaad Innovation (Jossey-Bass, 2012). described by The Economist as « the most comprehensive book yet to appear on the subject » of frugal innovation.[9] He is co-author of From Smart To Wise, a book on next generation leadership. He is also a regular columnist on Harvard Business Review, Bloomberg Businessweek and The Wall Street Journal, and maintains a blog on HarvardBusinessReview.org.
Navi’s next book, Conscious Society: Reinventing How We Consume, Work, and Live (due in 2018), shows how we can all expand our awareness and tap into our abundant inner-resources—love, ingenuity, wisdom—to co-create inclusive and sustainable communities. In doing so, we can consciously steer human evolution to a better future.
Radjou has had wide exposure in national and international media, including The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Bloomberg Businessweek, Financial Times, Le Monde, and Nikkei Shimbun. He is ranked as one of the 50 most influential persons shaping innovation in France.
In 2013, he received the Thinkers50 Innovation Award— given to a management thinker who is re-shaping the way we think about and practice innovation. In addition, his book Jugaad Innovation was shortlisted for the 2013 Thinkers50 CK Prahalad Breakthrough Idea Award.
Named by BusinessWeek as an « expert in corporate innovation, » he was also honoured by the Financial Times, which called his co-authored work on National Innovation Networks – the first-ever ranking of countries by their collaborative aptitude to integrate innovation capabilities across multiple regions – as « ambitious » and « sophisticated ». His latest research on « polycentric innovation » – a new approach that multinationals can use to integrate globally distributed R&D and innovation capabilities – has been featured in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Global Intelligence for the CIO, and Le Monde. Similarly, his concept of « indovation » — the unique process by which innovations are developed in India to serve a large number of people sustainably — has been featured in The Financial Times and in several conferences organised by Asia Society.

Have you read?
– After Macron’s victory, what next for France and Europe?
– Is France in deflation?
– The UN has ranked nations for innovation – how does yours do?

World Economic Forum – Why focusing on goals at work is making you a monster – by Chris Jackson Lead Economist, Agriculture Global Practice Benjamin Walker Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Management, UNSW Elliroma Gardiner Lecturer in Organisational Psychology, Griffith University – Published in collaboration with The Conversation

goals at work.jpg

Rather than putting the time and effort into promoting self-control, many organizations continue to favour focusing on goals, irrespective of how they are achieved. The general obsession by some organizations with outputs, reports, and metrics, signals to employees that performance is paramount, whatever the cost.
This has led to some spectacular failures in organizations. For example in the ride-sharing business Uber, poor leadership modeled and encouraged poor self-control within the business. Volkswagen’s 2015 emission scandal offers another sobering example of what can happen when there is insufficient scrutiny on how performance targets are met.
Many of us are guilty of having momentary lapses in self-control. This can be anything from procrastinating on facebook instead of finishing a client report or losing our cool with a frustrating colleague. Research shows that poor self-control more generally leads to dysfunctional outcomes.
Our research highlights that destructive leaders lack self-control especially when anxious and the difficulty of tasks is high. Constructive leaders, on the other hand, have much more self-control and are much less easily overwhelmed.
How to turn the focus from goals to self-control
Self-control, our ability to regulate our emotional and behavioural responses, is widely recognised as essential for success in modern organizations. The origins of self-control are thought to be, at least partially, biologically based . So while self-control can be taught, training employees to control their behaviour in the workplace is not always easy.
The usual way businesses gauge employee performance is epitomised by Norton and Kaplan’s Balanced Scorecard. The Balanced Score Card sets a range of balanced objectives that employees and teams need to meet and which cascade up through the organisation so that they are easily monitored.
The reliance on these tools like this can fail to identify, and even encourage poor self-control. It can create an environment of low accountability which paves the way for individuals with low self-control to reach senior leadership positions. Research shows a focus on performance also reduces the learning and development of staff, whereas a focus on effort and good process puts an organization on a far better footing.
There are multiple ways to encourage self-control among employees and minimise the effect of self-control failures.
One is by developing a culture of participation among staff. In meetings, proper discussion can lead to successful innovation, if everyone is involved in decision making. That’s right, brain storming actually works! This is because the emphasis is on sharing ownership of problems and solutions by encouraging contribution from a diverse group of people who feel empowered to speak.