Page 104 - Työpoliittinen aikakauskirja 1 2018

English Summaries
Työpoliittinen aikakauskirja 1/2018
ers. Yet how and where is it reasonable or even possible to use robots in care?
Before robots are widely used in care, we chose to ask the professional care workers, how do they view robots in general and with which tasks they would welcome robotic assistance. After all, in order for robots to be successfully implemented to healthcare, the sta must be open to the idea of using this new emerging technology. Another research question regarded impacts of organiz- ing work via technology. We asked do the care workers foresee robots taking over peoples’ jobs in general.
National survey data were collected from Finnish professional care workers (n = 3,800) between October and November 2016. Random samples were drawn from the member registers of two trade unions (SuPer and Tehy). Compared to the population, Finnish care workers, espe- cially those with higher education, were less worried about robots taking peoples’s jobs. Care workers would welcome robotic assistance especially in physically demanding tasks such as patient moves, heavy-lifting materials, and even in threatening situations. Robots helping the elderly directly was not viewed as positively. Particularly robots assisting home care custom- ers in everyday chores like bathing and eating were not rst on the care workers’ list of bene - cial ways to robotize care.
This article examines crowd work and research that has been conducted on such work from three perspectives. The rst is clari cation of the con- cept of crowd work and its di erent forms. Three di erent forms – micro work, on-demand gig work and online freelancing – are distinguished and described. Second, the article provides an
overview of studies on the extent of crowd work, with a view to forming an understanding of its actual prevalence and the factors a ecting the prerequisites for its future spread. Here, the article reviews a number of individual studies, because o cial statistical information on the phenomenon is not available. Third, the article discusses how crowd work could be utilized as a tool for developing working life and the labour market. The discussion focuses on three areas: how crowd work could lower the threshold for people’s participation in the labour market, how crowd work could improve the quality of work- ing life and how crowd work could contribute to innovation and solving demanding problems.
Restructuring of occupations in the digital era – how vocational education reacts?
Arja Haapakorpi, Dr. Soc. Sc, Adjunct Professor (University of Helsinki), Researcher, Helsinki
The article asks, how the Finnish vocational edu- cation system responds to the restructuring of jobs in new technologically mediated environ- ments. Job descriptions change with the intro- duction of digital technology, which is interre- lated with new ways of organizing work. Some jobs are totally replaced with technology, but the most common change is restructuring of job description, in other words, reorganizing tasks in a new way in interrelation with digital environ- ment. The changes in occupations are profound or gradual, but the design of them is due to the HR-policy of the employer organizations. The article investigates changes in middle-waged and middle-quali ed jobs and studies the vocational system as the qualifying institution.
The vocational education system is exible and provides a variety of possibilities to organ- ize the training for young and adult students. It guarantees also eligibility for higher educa- tional studies, which provides routes to career
Crowd work: forms, spread and signi cance as a change factor in working life
Tuomo Alasoini, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Chief Adviser, Business Finland
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