Working in the 21st century - The uberization of the economy? by Jacques Barthélémy and Gilbert Cette
Editions Odile Jacob - January 2017 - 180 Pages
What responses should be made to the rapid transformation of the labour market as a result of the digital revolution? Are the current statuses - employee, self-employed - adapted to these new realities? And how can the transition from one to the other be facilitated without sacrificing social protection?
Jacques Barthélémy and Gilbert Cette offer us with this book an ambitious and innovative framework for rethinking labour law. Taking stock of the so-called uberisation of the economy, they highlight its limits and the real risks. If this must be largely relativized, the fact remains that digital tools facilitate the cumulation of activities and the creation of enterprises. It is to respond to this in-depth movement in French society and to turn it into an opportunity that they are working here on the definition of a right that is both global and protective.
The economic changes brought about by digital technologies have a real but still poorly documented effect on the labour market and forms of employment in France. In recent decades, the wage society and its standards of stability had already been eroded by the spread of precariousness and uncertainty, taking away from our horizon the secure, long and continuous careers that had been the norm for previous generations. However, under the combined impact of robotisation, artificial intelligence and the "platformisation" of the economy, this erosion process is likely to accelerate further. »
"At the end of the work of Jacques Barthélémy and Gilbert Cette, an innovative and ambitious doctrinal framework is proposed. It is up to the legislator and the social partners to tackle the essential questions to give substance to this vision, starting with the indispensable reflection on the financing of this new social model.
The prevailing view that current economic changes should be viewed exclusively from a threat perspective must be resisted. Like any change, the digital age is reshuffling the cards. Because it brings risks, it reminds us of the need to accompany - more effectively than ever before - the transition of those who struggle to move from one world to another. »
Jacques Barthélémy is a lawyer specialising in employment law and founder of the Barthélémy Avocats law firm. He was an associate professor at the Montpellier Law Faculty.
Gilbert Cette is an associate professor of economics at the University of Aix-Marseille, an expert on the labour market
