Successive industrial revolutions hardly resemble a revolution in fact, since such an expression is representative of an abrupt change or the immediate overthrow of a particular order, configuration or form of power. In the case of industrial revolutions, it is a gradual and, from a historical point of view, relatively slow process.
The third stage of this process of transformation in the means and modes of production began in the second half of the 20th century and is still ongoing, the Third Industrial Revolution, also known as Informational Technical-Scientific Revolution, characterized by advances in telecommunications and transport systems, by the emergence and rapid expansion of information technology and automation, in addition to the development of robotic engineering. This new configuration established profound changes in the world of work.
In the previous stages of industrial production, there was a growing replacement of man by machine in the production process, making the individual just an appendage of an increasingly broader and more complex machinery. Currently, this situation has gained new and greater proportions, as, along with machinery and new technologies, information technology has also started to act. The human being started to be replaced not only by mechanics, but also by
softwares, which, in many cases, started to manage factory production.In addition, there is also the growing tertiarization of the economy, in which most of the jobs generated are concentrated in the commerce and services sector. This process, together with the flexibilization of work, contributed to the precariousness of working conditions, to the crisis of union representations and to the loss of labor rights.
Another aspect of the transformations in the world of work during the Third Industrial Revolution is also linked to the spatial issue between countryside and city. There was an intense mechanization of rural areas and the development of agricultural techniques and mechanisms that provided a great unemployment in this environment, which contributed to the intensification of the rural exodus, that is, a mass migration of the population from the countryside to the City.
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The work, both in urban and rural areas, became much more required in terms of technical qualification, since the operation of new technologies require certain specific knowledge that cannot be performed by a professional who does not have a certain formation. This context contributes to the emergence of the contradiction: an increase in the number of jobs and an increase in the number of unemployed, since the mass of workers who cannot adapt to the new working conditions does not reach opportunities.
As a result, there is a growth in job creation in informal sectors, where there are no laws and labor rights, in view of that this sector is characterized by its deregulation and the absence of an organized hierarchy of work (most of it is informal). The result is the characterization of several problems, including piracy, quite common in underdeveloped countries at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century.
Currently, there is an increase in the informal sector and self-employed workers. ¹
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¹ Image credits: africa924 and Shutterstock
By Rodolfo Alves Pena
Graduated in Geography
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
PENA, Rodolfo F. Alves. "Work in the Third Industrial Revolution"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/geografia/trabalho-na-terceira-revolucao-industrial.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
