Spaniards trust that the technological revolution will increase employment and reduce the working day

by time news

2023-05-08 13:44:19

The recent boom in artificial intelligence (AI), accelerated with emerging technologies, such as ChatGPT, does not seem to scare the Spanish for now. The majority of citizens (51%) trust that the technological revolution will create more jobs than it destroys. And they are also the majority who believe that technology will reduce the length of the working day (56%), improve the reconciliation between private and work life (53%) and reduce the gender gap in employment (53%).

All these data appear in the VI Survey of social perception of innovation in Spainprepared by the Fundación Cotec and Sigma Dos, which was presented this Monday in San Sebastián.

The survey incorporates an interactive visualization tool that allows combinations with the data and compare results by autonomous community

The survey, which is part of the Cotec Report Observatory, has been published every year since 2017. For this edition, 7,587 interviews, which allows breaking down results by territory. The field work was carried out between December 2022 and February 2023. The survey incorporates this year a interactive visualization tool that allows all kinds of combinations with the data, as well as consulting and comparing results by autonomous community.

The 27 percentage points (pp) difference between citizens who believe that technology will reduce working hours (56%) and those who think that it will not bring significant changes in this regard (29%) contrasts with the result of only four years ago, when the difference did not reach two pp

Robots and artificial intelligence

Asked about the threat to employment that they represent los robots, algorithms or AIthe responses of the Spaniards contain some surprises.

Two-thirds (63%) of the workforce believe that most current jobs will be replaced by machines in 15 years, but when asked in particular about their own work, only 12% think that the tasks they perform could be automated.

Self-confidence in front of machines also varies greatly depending on the work being done. Those who work in jobs that involve dealing with people (64%) believe more that robots and machines will not be able to do their job in 15 years, than those who operate machines (54%) or process information ( 48%).

And how are we preparing to face that future labor market automated? Again an apparent contradiction arises. The vast majority of workers believe that although Spanish society is not preparing well to face this future (70%), they already are (61%).

The report indicates that it is worrying” that 34% of the active population, close to seven million workers, declare that they do not feel qualified to compete in a job market dominated by technology. This negative perception is closely linked to the level of studies. 61% of those who do not have studies, 40% of those who have medium studies and 22% of those who have higher studies say they do not feel qualified for that future job.

There is also greater pessimism about their own technological labor capacities among the working women (39%) than among their peers (29%). Women, by the way, are also much less confident than they are that technology will reduce the gender employment gap (39% vs. 48%).

The confidence that the educational system is preparing future generations of workers well for that technology-dominated job market reaches its record low (15%) in the survey, five percentage points less than a year ago.

Effects of the pandemic on perception

76% of those surveyed perceive innovation as a positive phenomenon. In contrast, the perception of Spain as a country in the EU average for innovation has fallen 12 pp in five years (47% in 2022). The distance between those who see Spain as good in innovation and those who place their country in the European caboose has fallen since 2017 from 26.2 pp to just 2.6 pp (44% in 2022).

In just three years, marked by the pandemic, between 2019 and 2022, the perception of large Spanish companies as innovative organizations has also dropped by 10 pp (38% in 2022). Eight out of 10 Spaniards also see insufficient the Spanish public investment in R+D+I, a figure that remains stable over time, although those who are “strongly in agreement” with this skyrocket.

As for the impact of technological innovation, for the first time since 2018 the difference between those who believe that technological change generates social inequality (51%) and those who do not (29%) is narrowing.

Rights: Creative Commons.

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