Author: Simon Kanzen

In recent decades, the forms and conduct of work have been changing with increasing rapidity. The ceaseless march of technological development has largely been the catalyst for this transformation, primarily by a revolution in telecommunications but also due to the huge advancements and commercialization of computing technologies. Thus with the innovations of the internet and email, followed by Wi-Fi and smartphones, Progress has been changing not only the way in which work is conducted but also the type of work needed to be done.
    Technological progress can therefore be considered as the overarching context of the changing world of work, both from an historical and futurist perspective. Recently, however, this overarching context has been abruptly augmented as a result of the global pandemic that emerged in early 2020, in that the developments and repercussions of it were immediately instated as an ongoingly exigent context of life (evidenced by its domination of both social and industry news—and indeed, News in general). In particular, pandemic control measures have affected all normal life in the most radical of ways, forcing culture and society at large to adapt from the habitual conventions of 21^st century modernity to newly designed forms and means of social and occupational activity.
     A profound effect of this process – most salient to those aware of the overarching context pre-existent to it – is the catalyzation of the techno-generated transformation of work; for effectively, the pandemic has fast-tracked the very trends that Progress had established in recent decades, whilst also prompting novel developments which, nevertheless, seem to be in keeping with the cultural ideologies that advocate and facilitate Progress.