Prof. David Spencer

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How to make automation work for workers

David Spencer argues that if workers and society rather than big tech companies such as Amazon are to benefit from automation, they need to have a larger influence and stake in it.

Furloughing and COVID-19: assessing regulatory reform of the state

This article assesses regulatory reform of the state in the context of the move to furloughing in the UK. It establishes that furloughing was a successful response to the COVID-19 crisis, partly because it challenged the traditional UK crisis response of non-state intervention in the labour market. Furloughing prevented [...]

Lighter work for all

The goals of both better and less work require us to rethink and reorganise work as well as technology, and to adopt new ideas about what it means to work and live well in society. 

Making Light Work: An End to Toil in the Twenty-First Century

Is work a primordial curse? Or a spiritual calling? Or is it a tedious necessity that technology will abolish, freeing us to indulge lives of leisure? In this book David A. Spencer argues that work is only an alienating burden because of the nature of work under capitalism. He [...]

COVID-19 and the uncertain future of HRM: furlough, job retention and reform

The article argues that job retention should be a central aim and practice of human resource management (HRM). Set against the global COVID-19 crisis, theoretical insights are drawn from strategic HRM planning and the economics of ‘labour hoarding’ to consider the potential benefits of workforce furloughing. Furlough has been [...]

Digital automation and the future of work

Prepared at the request of the Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) and managed by the Scientific Foresight Unit, within the Directorate-General for Parliamentary Research Services (EPRS) of the Secretariat of the European Parliament. Modern capitalist economies are witnessing a period of rapid technological progress. Developments [...]

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