TECHNICAL CHANGE IN THE POLISH LABOUR MARKET IN THE CONTEXT OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had impact on many areas of our life – it influenced the situation on the labour market, stimulated technical progress, especially in areas related to communication and information technologies and other related technologies (referred to as disruptive technologies). The paper aims to identify the type of technological change on the Polish labour market and to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on potential changes in the trajectory of this change in the context of J. Rifkin’s concept of “end of work”. The analysis is based on the available statistical data, a review of international literature, as well as the results of an expert debate. It is argued, that the processes induced by the polarisation of the labour market and the COVID-19 pandemic should not lead to the “end of work” and massive technological unemployment in Poland in the coming years. At the same time, a change in the employment structure (in terms of professions, industries and task-content groups) should be expected towards an increase in the importance of non-routine work, with a decreasing role of routine work, which will be replaced by technological solutions. The forms of provision of work will also be transformed - traditional contractual employment will be replaced by “contracts for the provision of labour services” concluded more and more frequently with the use of internet platforms.