The word work is more general than “job” – whereas “job” is a specific occupation/profession, “work” refers to general efforts and activities done to accomplish a goal. “Work” can be done both inside an official job and outside a job!
The word job is more recent, dates from the industrial age, whereas work is an old word.
In the coming of the 4th industrial age, climate change and biodiversity extinction, explosion of population, increase in human lifespan (Silver Tsunami) and financial instability, there is enough work for everybody, but it may not be the same for jobs.
Lets put some definition:
Job - activity that people do to obtain money -- to make a living.
Work - activity that is performed for its own sake, for pleasure derived from giving, or the passion expressed for the activity itself.
If you did not need the money, would you still have the job?
If the answer is yes. Then your job is also your work, and you are the minority in this world.
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There is a connection to public health.
Evidence points that jobs without meaning makes you sick, and even kill you. I have a few friends that died this year. Friends that decided to grind and work hard to earn more money. One of them owns several houses but decided that it was hard to give up a high paying job and needed to work hard to maintain the same lifestyle until he collapsed and never woke up again. Another friend simply works in a stressful environment everyday and constantly falls ill, just to pay bills and get by, and eventually, his poor health caught up with him.
There are several research done to show that medical services have little effect on national health levels. Instead, what influences health is a work situation where people are in control of their lives.
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Money and Job.
The problem with work is finding someone to pay money for it. i.e. making it a paid job as well. The scarcity in jobs make money scarce as well. But does money need to remain scarce?
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Unemployment
With the coming of the 4th industrial revolution, will unemployment be just a blue collar thing?
No! Large corporation worldwide are shedding people and having "strategic layoffs" Even profitable companies are streamlining to be more efficient and this will be a trend and becoming new norm, and no jobs are safe.
As we progress in technology and processes, corporations may improve its competitiveness through downsizing. It also has economic consequences. as people buy less when they lose their jobs, but in Third World Countries, the middle class expands and market shifts there.
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Economic Exclusion
When economic irrelevance occurs, it creates depression in the population. "We don't need what they have and they can't buy what we sell."
Depression may become epidemic and you get a society that cares only for themselves. Violent rage and lashing out randomly and the majority of the society tries to blame others and find scapegoats for the problems.
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Fear by the majority
The next thing that is on everyone's mind is -- fear.
Fear leads to people and companies taking defensive positions, reducing investments, causing unemployment to increase and starting a vicious cycle.
People start to fear things different from them, and this creates political polarization. In many countries, political leaders cannot solve the problems as they follow traditional ways.
The traditional left-right debate is an inheritance of the Industrial Age economic framework. Debate had to do with private or public ownership of the 'means of production'; i.e. factories and machines.
What is missing is always -- money. In a poorer community, there is a lot of work to be done, and people are willing to do it, but who will pay for it?
Interestingly, with the fear, the population also turns to high nationalism, and we have seen the effects of this during WWII.
-- Robin Low
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