Giving Compass' Take:

• The author writes about the tendency to take a melodramatic stance on the future technological advances that will inevitably affect the workforce.  However, he writes that there is another perspective in which technology can help expand and elevate our workforce rather than limit it. 

• How can employers help their workers transition into a new type of workforce and support training programs for innovation? 

• How will the changing workforce affect school systems? 

The future of work is a hot topic nowadays.

The current debate often skews toward the melodramatic, foretelling a future in which machines drive humans out of work. According to some bleak estimates, 47 percent of jobs are at risk in the United States; 57 percent in the OECD countries; two thirds in developing economies; and half of all jobs globally (around two billion).

But similarly, dire predictions of large-scale job destruction and high technology-driven structural unemployment accompanied previous major episodes of automation, including by renowned economists. John Maynard Keynes offered one; Wassily Leontief provided another. Neither materialized.

Instead, technological change acted as a powerful driver of productivity and employment growth.

One key reason is that the technological innovations that destroy some existing jobs also create new ones. While new technologies reduce demand for low- to middle-skill workers in routine jobs, such as clerical work and repetitive production, they also raise demand for higher-skill workers in technical, creative, and managerial fields. A recent analysis estimates that new tasks and job titles explain about half of the recent employment growth in the U.S.

Read the full article about the future of work by Zia Qureshi at Brookings