Brief reference on employment and work.

With the advances of the fourth industrial revolution, regarding "disruption of jobs and skills" the World Economic Forum -WEF- emphasizes that, to the extent that commercial models change, the labor scenario is affected, the result implies a creation of employment and job displacement, with increased labor productivity and widening gaps between the skills employers need and the skills potential employees can offer. Adapting to the labor market training and instruction systems of previous revolutions took decades, but now with the fast pace and widespread disruption of the fourth industrial revolution, taking too long is not an option (WEF, 2018).

But to explore a little about employment and work, it is healthy to process these changes, sometimes these terms are used as if they were synonyms, but it is good to remember the difference. Etymologically, in the Middle Ages, the word work was associated with a restriction, it comes from the Latin tripalium, the name of a yoke that was placed on animals in labor, a term that was later extended to an instrument of torture (Neffa, 1999).

Neffa (1999) when reflecting on activity, work and employment, states that work has been defined as a "coherent set of technical operations that are aimed at producing the material means necessary for human existence"; According to the current etymology, work is a notion that implies the existence of a physical activity that mobilizes productive knowledge, making use of appropriate tools and using technology.

Regarding activity, Neffa (1999) states that he contemplates the dynamism of human life, which implies an effort that not only includes work but the development of all human faculties; it is in itself what makes sense to those who do it and do it to directly achieve a good or service in order to satisfy a material or immaterial need (Fouquet, A., 1998)[1].

Neffa (1999) expresses that work is one of the modes of activity, characterized as an effort made by man to produce something that is external to himself, with the direction of others and with a utilitarian purpose; It is a multidimensional activity that manifests itself in a variety of spheres, such as economic, social, ethical, technological, among others, as well as cognitive and psychic dimensions, meaning subjectivity, intersubjectivity, affectivity and relational. But in itself, work is not only an activity that involves human effort, it is also the expression of accumulated know-how, of personal ability, of learning carried out in the collective context of work that demonstrates autonomy, responsibility, creativity and adaptation capacities that workers have at their disposal to face the daily challenges that the activity demands of them (Neffa, 1999).

In relation to employment, Neffa (1999) explains from Annie Fouquet that all work is not a job, you can work and not have a job, as happens with mothers, housewives and domestic tasks that are not paid. , the same happens with benevolence, community and militant work in certain associations or groups organized voluntarily; however, these are activities that are socially recognized as useful, worse still, no remuneration is recognized.

So employment is a relationship that links a person's work with an organization in a legal and institutional context; It is a permanent employment relationship over time with a commercial nature since it is exchanged for an individually assigned salary, with legal guarantees and social protection, which are legitimized by law, professional statutes and/or collective bargaining agreements (Neffa, 1999 ).

The International Labor Organization defines work as "the set of human activities, remunerated or not, that produce goods or services in an economy, or that satisfy the needs of a community or provide the necessary means of sustenance for individuals", and on the other hand, it defines employment as “work performed in exchange for payment (salary, salary, commissions, tips, piece-rate payments or payments in kind), regardless of the dependency relationship (dependent or independent)”[1].

Levaggi (2004) based on the ILO definitions emphasizes that "decent work" as a concept that seeks to express what a good job or decent job should be in the context of a globalized world, a decent job that allows development of one's own abilities, it is not just any job, a job that fails to respect fundamental labor principles and rights is not qualified as decent, nor is it that which does not allow a fair income proportional to the effort made, without discrimination of any kind. type, and less so, work that excludes social dialogue.

“Decent work is a global demand that political and business leaders around the world are confronted with. Our common future depends in large part on how we face this challenge” (Somavia, 1999)[2], therefore, decent work is characterized by four strategic objectives: rights at work, employment opportunities, social protection and social dialogue (Levaggi, 2004).

Although, innovation is the meaning of development and competitiveness, it is vital to bear in mind that it has an impact on work and employment. It is understood that the creation of new products generates new jobs in the different productive sectors, it is also said that they imply a higher level of production and employment in an intensive way, because given the novelty, production standards are needed, therefore, their impact on employment implies an analysis of the product and the market in the respective sector, a new product not only replaces the old one but is also accompanied by a more competitive production process and by reducing production costs, it can lead to a decrease in employment (Heijs, 2012).

For the innovation of the processes, the machinery and equipment sector has appeared, as well as the sectors dedicated to the technical service and maintenance of machinery and equipment; thus, process innovation decreases employment in the sectors that need machinery, but at the same time there is a compensation mechanism because it creates employment in the new sectors of capital goods (Say, 1964, P.87)[1], however, this mechanism of compensation is difficult to preserve or defend (Heijs, 2012).

Heijs (2012) finally states that the current theoretical and empirical literature does not offer clear conclusions or a generally accepted model regarding the effects of innovation on employment, due to the diversity of ways to analyze these issues, since there are geographical differences regarding the impact of innovation on employment, as there are also at the level of companies, sectors or regions at the macro level or at the global level.

The impact of the new technology on the quality of employment deals with the requirements of human capital, safety, health and the level of satisfaction of the worker, for which the concept of "technological unemployment" is related, which indicates the imbalance of the functional distribution between the demand for employment and the supply in the labor market due to the training and qualification requirements of the unemployed worker, in other words, the compensation mechanisms do not work or work partially since the workers excluded from certain sectors are not suitable to be able to satisfy the functions in emerging sectors (Heijs, 2012).

Despite the concern about high unemployment in the world, imbalances and gaps in current educational systems obstruct the effective redistribution of underutilized and latent talent, at a high human and economic cost. Formal qualifications alone are often meaningless and a single job title may require different skills in different industries and locations (WEF, 2018). Given these changing conditions in the labor market, the WEF (2018) emphasizes that every day employers think strategically about how to use adjacent skills to discover hidden talents (WEF, 2018).

The WEF (2018) recognizes that work in the world changes rapidly, since recognizing and mapping new work models will be essential to channel the creation of stronger labor markets; job creation is a constant on the global agenda, as are policies aimed at ensuring protection for their employees and employers, perhaps the most successful approaches use an understanding of labor demographics, changing job functions and demand changing skills, in order to harness technology as a path to designing the ideal workplace.

[1] Cited in Heijs (2012)

[1] Cited in Neffa (1999)

[2] Cited in http://www.ilo.org/americas/sala-de-prensa/WCMS_LIM_653_SP/lang--es/index.htm accessed April 2018.

[3] Juan Somavia, first director general of the ILO (founded in 1919), at an international labor conference, in Geneva in 1999, quoted by Levaggi (2004)