Automation, Creativity, and the Future of Work in Europe: A Comparison between the Old and New Member States with a Special Focus on Hungary

Abstract

The fear of job loss due to the labour-saving technological changes is not a new phenomenon, dating back to the 19th century Luddites in Britain. Recently, similar fear has reawakened due to the rapid expansion of the increasingly cheap and capable computers (digitisation). According to the empirical experience of the European Working Condition Surveys (EWCS 2005 and 2015), every second workplace belongs to the category of ‘creative work’, which is less threatened by automation, and every fourth worker carries out ’routine’ tasks, which will be easily replaced by computers. However, important country group differences exist: creative jobs higher than EU-27 average characterise the Nordic, Continental and Anglo-Saxon countries. By contrast, the highest rate of routine tasks prevails in the Mediterranean and Central and Eastern European countries. Among the post-socialist countries Hungary lags behind the European average and the trends of the previous years on the job loss are alarming, meaning concerns of automatization are a valid concern for unskilled workers.