ABSTRACT
In recent years, research on the social implications of nanotechnol-ogy has resulted in a number of studies that have led to debates both within and outside the academic community [1].For its part, the political agenda on the regulation of nanotechnology has pro-gressed, and today issues such as nomenclatures, certifications and risks to health and the environment are under consideration [2]. Neither the research nor the political agenda have addressed the implications of nanotechnology for labor. In this chapter, we address the subject from an analysis of the characteristics of
nanotechnology products that are on the market.We show that nanotechnology will have a significant impact on employment distribution among sectors, the international division of labor and the skills required for work. 15.1 Nanotechnology and EmploymentThe debate over the implications of new technologies for employment has a long history. Adam Smith, who lived through the birth of the industrial revolution, believed that technological change would benefit workers because it would make the goods they buy cheaper [3]. Half a century later, David Ricardo in his last writings argued that, due to the unemployment caused by the use of machinery, industrialization was often detrimental to working class interests [4]. Yet another half century later, around 1860, Karl Marx wrote extensively about the impacts of capitalist technology on increasing unemployment, and criticized the compensation theory that argued that the loss of jobs due to technology would be compensated by new ones created in the new activities and companies that resulted from these technologies [5]. By the end of the 19th century, the neoclassical economic theory embraced the compensation theory and claimed that the free market would lead to full employment [6].Since then, the perspectives of employment compensation and the negative impact of technology on employment have confronted each other with each new wave of innovations. It is difficult to separate the effects that technology has on employment from the other factors that influence it, such as the commercial value of such technology, economic cycles, imports or relocation of production. What makes it difficult to reach a consensus concerning this controversy is not, however, a problem of empirical data, but rather that both positions are based on different assumptions and observations. The perspective of employment compensation overlooks the fact that progressive reduction of the working day due to class struggle has in part hidden technological unemployment. The reduction from between sixteen or eighteen hours, which was typical during the industrial revolution, to the eight-hour days of our times, was made possible by the increased productivity
resulting from technology and the social redistribution of working hours [7]. Furthermore, the evidence of job compensation is usually based on developed central regions from the viewpoint of the birth and diffusion of technological changes, where new industries are normally created for the growing world market. But when the global context is considered, this compensating capacity is limited. After over two decades of global markets driven by microelectronics and information and communication technology, and before the impacts of the current crisis were felt, experts were already recognizing problems with labor. The director general of the United Nations International Labor Organization, for example, stated that the growing world economy was producing millions of new jobs, but could not reverse the high levels of unemployment (about 190,000,000 people), nor could it help in the case of precarious jobs that did not ensure minimum living conditions, a situation in which 50 percent of workers around the world find themselves [8].A new technological revolution based on nanotechnology is currently taking place. Nanotechnology based products are more and more readily available in the market and experts envision radical innovations for the coming decades. Along with conditions of production and competition, employment will also be affected. It is worth noting that employment has yet to enter the research agenda of the social implications of nanotechnology. When it comes to working conditions, research has only begun on the risks of this technology to workers’ health. Is it too early to study the impacts of nanotechnology on employment? Could it be that nanotechnology is still in the earliest stages of development and has yet to have much effect on productive processes? Moreover, how can we analyze the implications of nanotechnology for employment when there are not even any classifications that describe new occupations [9]? Jobs in nanotechnology have yet to appear in the statistics. The few studies available show that business executives fear that there will be a shortage of qualified workers [10], and that the current size of the nanotechnology work market is still small and limited to those sectors of the workforce that are involved in research and development [11]. Projections for the coming years, however, suggest a growing dynamic in the labor markets to keep up with
the rapid growth of the nanoproduct market. The Senior Advisor for Nanotechnology at the National Science Foundation foresees the creation of two million direct jobs and five million indirect jobs in connection with nanotechnology at the global level by 2015 [12]. Lux Research foresees up to ten million jobs in 2014, 11% of manufacturing jobs worldwide [13]. 15.2 Analyzing Nanotechnology Impacts on
15.2.1 MethodsWe conducted an exploratory study [14] of the common charac-teristics of the nanotechnology products that appear to have a potential impact on labor. We used two databases containing nanote-chnology products: the Inventory of Consumer Products prepared by The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars [15] and the Inventory of Brazilian Companies and Products prepared by Noela Invernizzi [16]. From a review of the databases, we identified four charac-teristics of nanotechnology products that impact labor. These
characteristics are: (1) the products are more efficient, (2) the products are multifunctional, (3) the products require fewer and/or different raw materials, and (4) the products have a long-er market lifespan. We noted which products combine these characteristics. Their analytical individualization was, nonethe-less, relevant when it came to exploring their implications for la-bor. Furthermore, these characteristics were examined under the scope of the specificity of the current technological revolution in material terms (changes in how matter is manipulated, new properties of materials on the nano-scale and the importance of size), and also in socio-economic terms (concentration of research and development in nanotechnology, fast pace of develop-ment, trans-sectoral application, geographical expansion).
