WILL WE WORK IN THE FUTURE?

Back in 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that with technological change and improvements in productivity, we’d only be working 15 hours a week by now. But while working hours have declined by 26 per cent, most of us still average 42.5 hours a week according to Eurostat figures.

One of the things Keynes underestimated is the human desire to compete with. “Overwork as a choice, as opposed to slaving away for subsistence wages, has been part of Western society since the Industrial Revolution when some predicted that automation would create an ‘excess’ of leisure time. Needless to say, that didn’t happen.”