While the digital revolution’s contribution to European productivity is now widely accepted, its impact on jobs continues to be much harder to determine, not only because of its integration at all levels of society, but also because of the difficulty of assessing whether more jobs have been created or lost due to the arrival of digital technologies.

On 7 August, in the middle of summer, the EU’s Digital Agenda Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, told the Belgian daily newspaper De Standaard that “the most recent studies show that the faster development of digital technologies could create a million jobs”. And, more specifically, “€850 billion of growth by 2015”. If the Digital Strategy, which was adopted on 19 May by the European Commission, showed ambition in terms of contribution to economic growth, it has shown itself to be less so in terms of job creation.

FORECAST, NOT PREDICTION

Following further investigation, it would appear that the proposed figure of a million new jobs is itself not a new prediction. It is a forecast based on the creation of 105,000 new jobs across Europe in 2006, drawn from a study that was carried out for the Commission in 2008. Because of its size, such a figure has been greeted enthusiastically by those who know how important such favourable estimates are to good communication, as Kroes’s spokesman Jonathan Todd confirms when he explains that “the Digital Agenda is a catalyst, as well as having a ‘multiplier effect’, and could bring a significant impact on growth and employment”.

Information and communication technologies are very much a part of our daily lives - try to imagine what would happen in the event of a generalised breakdown of all microprocessors. All socio-economic activity would stop: no telephones or sorting of mail, bank transactions and production lines would stop, transport would be very disorganised and all the labour-saving devices that are taken for granted in modern society, such as the car, the fax and even the washing machine would become inoperable.

The second industrial revolution therefore, which came with the arrival of the computer, changed companies forever. The transformations brought about by ICTs took place in several stages, Anne De Beer, doctor of sociology of information sciences and communication, pointed out in a recent conference: “We witnessed changes to the content and organisation of work, then a shift in some of the jobs affected by productivity gains towards other activities or developing professions”.

It is thus imperative for experts to tackle the question of new technologies and employment not in a quantitative, but qualitative fashion. In other words, in terms of the evolution of existing professions towards new activities. A good example is provided by telephony services, which have made it possible to create services as varied as technical assistance for the installation of a PC, the management of medical appointments, product sales or the provision of donations towards humanitarian campaigns. But, unfortunately for this sector’s employees ICT development continued, which has involved in recent years, for example, call centres moving abroad to countries such as Morocco and Senegal for French-speaking people and India or the Philippines for English-speaking citizens, because of the far lower costs of labour, installation and operation.

“The most recent studies show that the faster development of digital technologies could create a million jobs,” said Kroes