Abstract
This paper summarizes considerations and preliminary research results on the consequences of the progressive use of digital technologies in industrial work. The focus is particularly on the situation in German industry, where this development has been intensively discussed as “Industry 4.0”. Starting point is the assumption that currently a far-reaching technology push in industrial production can be observed. In terms of the potential consequences for industrial labor foreseen by the literature, currently contradictory development scenarios are being discussed. For one thing, the volume of potential job losses caused by the new technologies is highly controversial. For another, diverging consequences for job activities and qualifications can be recognized, interpreted as the “upgrading”, respectively “polarization” of skills. What concrete changes actually occur however, is dependent on the influence of numerous factors. Especially, what concept of technology automation is realized in each case, and its respective implementation process, is significant here. The conclusion reached is that, in the medium term, at the most a somewhat limited spread of digital technologies and their consequences can be expected to occur.
Highlights
Zusammenfassung Im Beitrag werden erste Forschungsergebnisse über die Konsequenzen des Einsatzes digitaler Technologien für industrielle Arbeit zusammengefasst
The same is found in a study by the Boston Consulting Group: “In our analysis of Industry 4.0’s impact on German manufacturing, we found that the growth it stimulates will lead to a 6 % increase in employment during the 10 years
This study, oriented on the analysis concept of Frey and Osborne, “investigated approximately 81 % of low-level” and marginally employed persons in Germany. On this basis the study arrives at the statement that about 18.3 million, or 59 % of these jobs are at risk in their current form from the progressive technologizing of the German economy
Summary
The following paper deals with the question of what the consequences are of the diffusion and implementation of digital technologies for work, and in particular, for work in industries. Hirsch-Kreinsen tion potentials with no less than disruptive social and economic consequences (Avant 2014) In this view, a new era is recognizable that in the international debate is variously called the “second machine age” (Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2014), the “third industrial revolution” (Rifkin 2011) or, in the German-speaking world, the “fourth industrial revolution”—respectively, “Industry 4.0” (research Union and acatech 2013). Two phases of digitization can be distinguished: In the first phase, this process has already been established since at least the end of the 1990s in those sectors of the economy where the production, consumption and communication is directly based on intangible transactions and the use of data and information These are above all service sectors such as music production and distribution, publishing and press, or financial services, the digitization of which has meant far-reaching structural changes in individual business models as well as company and industry branch structures (Zuboff 2010; Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2014). All the authors assume that with the realization and diffusion of Industry 4.0 systems, as well as generally with the increasing digitization of social and economic processes, conversion processes will be triggered that in the longer term are sustainable but not yet foreseeable in their consequences for socioeconomic structures and for labor (e.g. Hirsch-Kreinsen et al 2015)
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