觉得自己的工作毫无意义？越来越多人这么想_公共英语阅读理解

觉得自己的工作毫无意义？越来越多人这么想

A growing number of people think their job is useless. Time to rethink the meaning of work

越来越多的人认为自己的工作毫无用途，是时候重新思考工作的意义了

A great deal has been written in recent years about the perils of automation. With predicted mass unemployment, declining wages, and increasing inequality, clearly we should all be afraid.

近年来，自动化所带来的风险不断被提及。显然，我们应该为此感到恐惧，因为人们预言，自动化会造成大规模失业，减少工资，以及加剧不平等现象。

By now it’s no longer just the Silicon Valley trend watchers and technoprophets who are apprehensive. In a study that has already racked up several hundred citations, scholars at Oxford University have estimated that no less than 47% of all American jobs and 54% of those in Europe are at a high risk of being usurped by machines.

如今，观察员和科技预言家们已经不再只忧心于硅谷的趋势了。一项研究已经取得了上百个例证，牛津的学者们估计至少有47%的美国岗位和54%的欧洲岗位会被机器取代。

觉得自己的工作毫无意义？越来越多人这么想1

I admit, we’ve heard it all before. Employees have been worrying about the rising tide of automation for 200 years now, and for 200 years employers have been assuring them that new jobs will naturally materialize to take their place. After all, if you look at the year 1800, some 74% of all Americans were farmers, whereas by 1900 this figure was down to 31%, and by 2000 to a mere 3%. Yet this hasn’t led to mass unemployment. In 1930, the famous economist John Maynard Keynes was predicting that we’d all be working just 15-hour weeks by the year 2030. Yet, since the 1980s, work has only been taking up more of our time, bringing waves of burnouts and stress in its wake.