Automation, New Business Models, and Jobs: Prospects for Quebec

Quebec will be facing simultaneous accelerations in two areas: population aging and a wave of retirements, and “smart” technologies—automation and robotization—that will disrupt Quebecers’ employability and the competitiveness of their organizations. No one will be unaffected by these demographic and technological changes, and 1.4 million workers could be affected. Technology will bring productivity gains, better working conditions, new occupations, and undreamed-of new enterprises, all of them timely, given the aging of the province’s population. This will not be without negative consequences, however: socioeconomic, geographic, political, fiscal, and other changes that people, employers, unions, and governments will have to address. Better for Quebec to adapt to these developments in competition and the labour market with new ideas in education and training than to try to fight them. Some courses of action are suggested.