30 ( 4 ). european commission ( 2018 ), ageing report 2018 - underlying assumptions and projection methodologies. ricardo, d. ( 1821 ), the principles of political economy & taxation. london : new york : j. m. dent ; e. p. dutton, reprinted in 1911. in his famous essay ‘ economic possibilities for our grandchildren ’ ( 1930 ), keynes wrote : ‘ we are being afflicted with a new disease of which some readers may not yet have heard the name, but of which they will hear a great deal in the years to come – namely, technological unemployment. this means unemployment due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour. ’ 6 he also thought that in one hundred years there would no longer be a need for humans to work much at all. three hours of work per day would suffice to satisfy the ‘ old adam in most of us ’, he said, that is, mankind ’ s innate urge to produce with ‘ the sweat of his brow ’. we have twelve years left to reach this goal. 7 in the words of mokyr et al., 8 ‘ if someone as brilliant as david ricardo could be so terribly wrong in how machinery would reduce the overall demand for labour, modern economists should be cautious in making pronouncements about the end of work. ’ our experience so far is that, in the long run, technological change improves living standards by boosting productivity and increasing output and consumption, without destroying jobs in the aggregate. 9 average working hours have indeed come down, but they are nowhere near the level keynes imagined. doomy predictions suggesting that machines would at a certain point in the future have ‘ an absolute and a comparative advantage over humans in all activities ’ 10 are likely to prove misplaced. 11 however, technological advances do imply changes in the occupational structure. in recent years, many have detected one such change in the form of a ‘ polarization ’ of the labour market. middle - range jobs involving routine - intensive tasks, which can be easily automated, have been hardest hit ; as a share of total employment, they have fallen by about 7 percentage points in the us and 9 points in europe. 12 at the same time, increased employment opportunities have arisen at both ends of the skill distribution. the demand for high - skill professionals has increased because their skills complement technology. but the demand for low -

, which records all reforms in employment protection legislation, lists almost twice as many measures in 2008 - 2013 as in the previous seven years. in italy, the number of reforms grew by a factor of seven during those years, while the reform process continued in 2014 and 2015. reforms extended the coverage of the unemployment benefit system, enhanced active policies, and increased the flexibility of labour market rules, notably by making firing procedures simpler and less uncertain. the french reform of 2017 goes much in the same direction. available research has shown that the italian reforms have contributed to creating new stable jobs after a period of prolonged stagnation, and to accelerating the conversion of temporary into permanent jobs. 28 one paper along these lines will be presented tomorrow. 29 the path ahead europe has made considerable, if uneven, progress in improving labour - related regulation in the past few years. even though the profound scars of the great recession are still visible in many countries, employment levels are now higher than they were before the crisis started in 2008 ; the share of individuals actually participating in the labour market is also at its highest level ever, reflecting both increased dynamism in our societies and the effect of policies that have reduced disincentives to work. still, much remains to be done. cahuc, p., kramarz, f. and nevoux, s. ( 2018 ), ‘ short - time work and employment in the great recession in france ’. cestone, g., fumagalli, c., kramarz, f. and pica, g. ( 2018 ), ‘ insurance between firms : the role of internal labor markets ’. fredriksson, p., cederlof, j., nekoei, a. and seim, d. ( 2018 ), ‘ consequences of advance layoff notice for workers and firms ’. van der klaauw, b. and ziegler, l. ‘ a randomized experiment on matching unemployed workers to employers ’. turrini et al., ( 2015 ), ‘ a decade of labour market reforms in the eu : insights from the labref database ’, iza journal of labor policy, 12 ( 4 ). sestito, p. and viviano, e. ( 2018 ), ‘ firing costs and firm hiring : evidence from an italian reform ’, economic policy, 93 ( 33 ). boeri, t. and garibaldi, p. ( 2018