Noshe poster of Afterworkextraordinary documentary film by Erik Gandini, there is a robot sitting on the deck chair. A provocation, of course (the machines don’t get tired). But the search forUniversity of Oxford The Future of Employment (The future of employment), already imagine a world of machines and algorithms. It’s not the Matrix, but we’re getting close. In America, 47 percent of jobs are at risk. The probability of being wiped out is 99 percent for telemarketers and insurers, 97 percent for cashiers, 89 percent for bus drivers.
Human labor wiped out by a computer?
Most of the known professions will probably disappear in the next fifteen years, so we may have to rethink the role of work in our lives. It’s actually already happening. Phenomena like Quiet quitting (do the minimum wage) e Great Designation (mass resignations, 70 per cent in the 26-35 age group), whose anthem is – rather curiously, the song by Beyoncè Break Your Soul (“I fell in love, I quit my job”), suggest the discomfort. Which the numbers confirm.
A research by the University of Padua reveals: 44 percent of Italians are dissatisfied with their salary, without major differences between men and women, between North and Centre, but Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) are more dissatisfied than the others (51 percent). Many cannot bear the inhumane way in which we have declined the job, they write Andrea Colamedici & Maura Gancitano in the essay: Who made me do this? (HarperCollins).
Will robots steal people’s jobs? Somewhere they already started doing it (Getty)
Broken dreams
The complaints about the impossibility of a career, the absence of meritocracy and low salaries are confirmed in the shocking analysis of the Associazione Ricerca Felicità. Nearly 60 percent of Gen Z are considering changing jobs soon, for Millennials (those born between 1980 and 1996), we are at 52.6 (percentage that has risen in the last twelve months) and the Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) would like it too, one in four. Says Sandro Formica, who teaches Science of the Self at the University of Miami: «All generations come together to demonstrate that the Italian system is not working. In the largest study ever done, with 18 million responses, we see that the greatest suffering derives from the mismatch between skills/aspirations and work. It’s a global problem, but in Italy the gap is among the highest in Europe».
Millennials and Gen X (those born between 1964 and 1980), 80 percent disillusioned, experience the contradictions of a system that on the one hand invites you to “don’t stop dreaming” and on the other orders: “be satisfied”. The cinema has already received the cry of pain. I don’t believe in anythingby Alessandro Marzullo (around the festival, in theaters from September), is a nocturnal journey into the souls of four thirty-year-olds: in a decadent Rome, the talented artist is a hostess for a living, the aspiring actor consoles himself with sex occasionally, the couple of young musicians work illegally in a restaurant.
I don’t “play” anymore
Unease and frustration also turn into sudden resignation (in 2022 in Italy the impact was around 19.5 per cent while in 2018 it was 14 per cent) or in psychological malaise. THEThe Psychologists Bonus, activated last year, collected about 395,000 questionsbut was able to answer just over 40 thousand.
Almost one in five boys between the ages of 15 and 34 is a “neet”, does not study and does not work. This is also the highest figure in all of Europe. «Often discouraging are poor wages and excessive hours» explain Colamedici & Gancitano, «but this behavior is the powerful answer to questions that push more and more young people not to immerse themselves in the great adult game, employment. Because I have to? In a society that doesn’t want me except to consume, why should I believe it? Work, in theory, should be a positive energy transformer: what goes into it (desires, time, effort) should be less than what comes back (economy, status, satisfaction). Yet we are more tired than ever, disappointed, exhausted, worn out».
That feeling of not making it
«Many young people between the ages of 25 and 32 find it difficult to adapt to the conditions of social life and work» says Danila De Stefano, clinical psychologist, founder of Good one, an online psychology service that successfully launched the Undressed campaign, culminating in a weekend open to the public with very brief “confessions” (one minute) in front of a tablet. «We have reached one hundred thousand users, + 30 percent between 2020 and 2021, and we have offered one million video sessions. How come? Social pressure, disorientation, obsession with performance, insecurity, lack of perspectives, lack of meaning, and an increasingly widespread syndrome of chronic stress. It’s the feeling of not making it, dissatisfaction and helplessness in the face of routine. Reconciling work and private life is impossible, yet we are told that our fulfillment comes from work».
It’s a global problem. After Work, Gandini’s film, gives voice to the young Amazon driver watched by five cameras as she delivers her parcels, even three hundred, and says: “The day I have to pee in a bottle, I quit”.
Performative workaholicism
It gives a voice to the 55 percent of Americans who he forfeited $578 million worth of vacation time in the name of a “performative workaholic” passed off as a work ethic. It gives voice to the ghost-employees of Kuwait, where employment is guaranteed by law, and therefore everyone receives a salary, often in paradoxical situations: even 20 people hired for the tasks of one, confined in a basement, in front of an empty desk . They bring books from home and watch Netflix, offended by the farce of going to the office unnecessarily. We suffer from a sense of uselessness as well as from overworking.
Koreans, says Gandini, work thirteen hours a day, seven days a week all their lives. South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, so much so that the government has launched a campaign to convince people to shorten the hours, and finally, with the “PC-off” operation, at 18 computers shut down automatically and everyone goes home.
Not just work, but invest in well-being
Burnout is a serious problem, more than the “active disengagement” practiced by 85 percent of workers worldwide. To understand something, instead of the usual questionnaires, companies now use video games that guarantee more sincere and relaxed answers. Axel Fox (real name Fortuna Imperatore), a graduate in psychology, has designed the fantasy game WorkDown for Game2Value which allows you to know the level of satisfaction and the relationship with the boss.
It works like this: «In a dystopian society, the company has canceled negative emotions because they reduce productivity. But then a colleague disappears: she had a fit of anger. And the others don’t know what anger is… At each station there is a mini-game to answer. You don’t win anything, of course, you don’t lose and you don’t die. But you measure your stress level, you find traces of burnout, and the result is delivered to the client». Solution? Emanuele Aloise, Corporate Solutions Manager of Fitprime, proposes that companies invest in wellness: according to the Wellness at Work report, for every euro spent, 2.3 “return”. Before ending up in the Matrix world, working less might be a great deal.
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