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This report by the RSA highlights the need for more targeted state support for industries threatened by COVID-19, emphasising the additional risk to jobs from accelerated automation. The RSA Future Work Programme seeks to secure good work amid technological upheaval, made more urgent by the pandemic's economic impact. The report proposes a government-led transition service, modelled on Sweden's Job Security Councils, to redeploy and support workers at risk from both COVID-19 and automation, offering transitional basic income during retraining. 

This report from the RSA Future Work Centre emphasises that the twin challenges of economic insecurity and labour-market transforming technologies requires a new blueprint social contract for good work based on five principles – security, wellbeing, growth, freedom and subjective nurture. The research identifies the central aim of this new social contract as a transfer of responsibility away from individuals, emphasising that this shift is not just about amplifying worker power. Stronger worker voice organisation can also lead to more flexible and dynamic capitalism, grounded in a stronger stakeholder relationship between workers, unions and employers, which can lead to a social contract that is both more resilient and where firms face less regulatory red tape.

This report from the RSA explains that while the old model of a 'job for life' provided security for most of the workforce for nearly thirty years, now security has become a commodity increasingly reserved for the highly skilled and networked, with an increasing number of people now working independents, contractors, part-timers and platform workers. The net result of this erosion of job security is that the fastest-growing forms of work are the most transactional and have the least security. The report describes the results of a unique partnership between the RSA, Alt/Now and the Mastercard Centre for Inclusive Growth exploring efforts to design new systems of support and security for those living at the sharp end of modern working life, and the action needed to create a holistic 21st century safety net.   

This paper by the RSA explores how economic insecurity is experienced by workers, including those in non-standard employment arrangements such as zero-hours contracts, finding that workers increasingly feel that their income from work does not provide them with enough to maintain a decent standard of living and they are increasingly experiencing problems with income volatility. It reveals that many workers, including those in steady jobs, lack the resources needed to protect themselves against financial shocks: 36% would struggle to pay an unexpected bill of £100 and 59% would struggle to pay an unexpected bill of £500. The report concludes by offering a view on what policy and practice reforms will be needed to develop a new social contract that can tackle rising economic insecurity.   

In this report, RSA offers a collection of short stories on the future of work in an age of radical technologies, and reflects on how fiction can prepare us for the world of tomorrow. 

This RSA report argues that rising inequality, growing suppression in the workplace, stagnant wages, heightened discrimination and bias, and deepening geographic division could all have a greater impact than simple job losses to robots. Based on detailed 'scenario modelling', the report details four very different scenarios for the future of work in the UK.  The first, the Big Tech Economy, describes a world where most technologies develop at a rapid pace, from self-driving cars to 3D printing, delivering significant improvements in the quality of products and public services. However, unemployment and economic insecurity creep upwards, and the spoils of growth are offshored and concentrated in a handful of US and Chinese tech behemoths. The rapid pace of change leaves workers and unions with little time to respond.  The second scenario, the Precision Economy, portrays a future of hyper-surveillance, whereby technological progress is moderate but a proliferation of sensors allows firms to create value by capturing and analysing more information on objects, people and the environment.  The third, the Exodus Economy, is characterised by economic slowdown on the scale of 2008 which dries up funding for innovation and keeps the UK in a low-skilled, low-productivity and low-paid rut.  The final scenario, the Empathy Economy envisages a future of responsible stewardship whereby technology advances at a clip, but so too does public awareness of its dangers.   

This paper by the RSA suggests the rapid advancement of technology will evidence an expansion of two types of job: 'hi-tech' ones that involve creating, maintaining and interpreting machines; and 'hi-touch' ones that are almost entirely resistant to automation, such as social care workers and hospitality staff.   

This report by the RSA discusses the rise of atypical work in Britain, highlighting there are now nearly a million people on zero-hour contracts and 1.7 million in temporary work; a record 4.8 million are in self-employment, while there are an estimated 1.1 million people in Britain's gig economy. It explains that the rise in atypical work has been followed by fears that the labour market is fragmenting into low paying, poorly protected jobs. The report considers the different dimensions of good work in the context of atypical work, and explores insights from a survey exploring workers' experiences of economic security. The research finds that for a third of workers, the degree of confidence they have in maintaining a decent quality of life is low and for a significant minority, their insecurity is extreme. In addition to experienced insecurity, it also highlights a hidden insecurity; for example, some workers are in steady jobs, but have little to no savings and wouldn't be able to tide themselves over in the event of a financial shock.  The report highlights that while there is enthusiasm for good work among businesses, trade unions and government, there are still great challenges ahead. It considers whether traditional 'objective' measures of security, such as contract type or employment status are sufficient or reflect the scale of these challenges and offers a wider lens to our understanding the modern experience of work and how we can improve it.