Technology is quickly changing the nature of work. Full-time employment with health care and a pension is being replaced with short-term contracts with no benefits, leaving workers exposed. Sharan Burrow has been General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation since 2010, and a champion of workers rights in the age of technology. Burrow joined a panel on social protection and the future of work during the 2018 IMF-World Bank Annual meetings. The IMF’s David Pedroza sat down with Sharan Burrow in Bali, Indonesia, where the meetings took place.
Advances in technology are already shaking up the landscape for jobs in many regions around the world. But with its rapidly growing population, sub-Saharan Africa stands to be particularly impacted by the wave of technological innovation known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The latest Regional Economic Outlook for sub-Saharan Africa looks at how technology and other factors like climate change and trade might affect the region’s job market. Economist Axel Schimmelpfennig led the study on the future of work, and in this podcast he says one of the challenges for the region is to support those workers who are being dislocated by technological change.
This new research will be discussed at the Future of Work in Sub-Saharan Africa conference in Ghana, Dec. 17, 2018.
Axel Schimmelpfennig is a Division Chief, and heads the Uganda team in the IMF’s Africa department.
The human instinct to trade goes back thousands of years, and Sir Barry Cunliffe has been digging up evidence of those first steps toward today’s globalized world throughout his long career as one of Europe’s most highly respected archaeologists. Sir Cunliffe is an Emeritus professor at Oxford University and a Commissioner of English Heritage. He was invited to speak to economists as part of the IMF Futurist Series, designed to bring outside views to the Fund and spark new ideas. In this podcast, Sir Barry Cunliffe says cultural and economic values should be one and the same.
His latest book By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean is published by Oxford University Press.
Sir Barry Cunliffe served as President of the Society of Antiquaries, Governor of the Museum of London, and a trustee of the British Museum. He received a knighthood in 2006.
(photo: B540/Guillem Lopez/Photoshot/Newscom)
As the world becomes more interconnected and economies more integrated, the role of communications and journalism is increasingly important. But cutting through all the noise is not always easy. In this podcast, legendary Financial Times journalist, Martin Wolf, sits down with the head of IMF communications, Gerry Rice, to talk about the state of global cooperation and the corrosion of trust. Wolf has been reporting on the global economy for over three decades, and his writing influenced policymakers during the global financial crisis. Their conversation was recorded during the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings in Bali, Indonesia.
Martin Wolf’s book The Shifts and the Shocks is published by Penguin books.