Drawing on nearly a decade of Europe-wide research, this open access book offers a comprehensive account of the changing nature of work from the arrival of the computer to the rise of generative AI. It presents new evidence on the digitisation of work and the standardisation it brings about. It challenges the narrative of automation as a cause of mass unemployment, showing that automation replaces specific tasks rather than whole jobs and that its impact has been mild and mostly positive, contributing to occupational upgrading. It then turns to the rising use of platforms and algorithms to coordinate work, and the risks this brings: increasingly intrusive monitoring and surveillance, reduced autonomy and the intensification of work. Throughout, it considers whether recent developments in AI and green energy may change these trends in the near future.

The result is a nuanced, evidence-based account that questions dominant narratives, above all the obsessive focus on automation, and foregrounds the less visible but more consequential trends beneath them, such as the standardisation of work and the erosion of worker autonomy. It will be essential reading for students, researchers and policymakers in labour economics, the sociology of work and economic sociology.

Enrique Fernández-Macías is a researcher at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Spain.

Ignacio González Vázquez is a researcher at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Spain.

Sergio Torrejón Pérez is an economic and policy analyst at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Spain.

Laura Nurski is an Associate Research Fellow and Head of Programme on Future of Work at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Belgium.