The future of work and an ergonomics response

The world we live in is changing so much and so rapidly that “there is nothing permanent except change,” although that statement is attributed to Heraclitus writing about 500 BCE. This applies across society and not just to work, as detailed, for example, by Fukuyama (1999) and Kennedy (2000). The predictions of how this future will affect work have a wide spectrum, from the cautiously optimistic (Friedman, 1999) to the thoroughly pessimistic (Rifkin, 1995; Mander and Goldsmith, 1996). Note that these sources were from the more optimistic 1990s (at least in the United States) where the Cold War had ended, the Internet was expanding explosively and the influence of inter- national terrorism was relatively minor.