Industrial jobs are disappearing, and they will continue to disappear owing to productivity gains from automation. Thus, social models that were created to fit industrial and early service economies will no longer be viable. As the industrial workforce shrinks, the social model founded on it will go, too.

Traditionally, nations have harnessed taxpayers to their territory by making almost all social guarantees dependent on working in one country, every day, every month, and for at least three decades. In creating free movement of people, this web has only got more complex but never disappeared.

Most new jobs created by global digital opportunities make people more independent. Fewer people will work for one company at a time or in the same country all the time. More will work remotely across borders.

Kersti Kaljulaid Quotes