The future of work

A record number of employees have quit their jobs in recent months, in what’s been dubbed the Great Resignation. Newspapers report that it’s part of post-Covid demand for flexible working and better work life balance.

After last year, where up to a quarter of the UK workforce was paid not to work through the furlough scheme, are we reassessing our relationship to our jobs? How does work impact our health and sense of self? And should we improve our working conditions - or try to abolish work altogether?

Ayeisha is joined by Amelia Horgan, assistant lecturer at the school of philosophy and art history, University of Essex, and author of Lost in Work.

- Grab a copy of Amelia's book: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745340913/lost-in-work/

- Listen back to past episodes on outsourcing and the impacts of the economy on mental health: https://neweconomics.org/section/podcasts

- Read Ayeisha's piece for the second issue of the New Economics Zine: https://neweconomics.org/2020/10/this-is-your-brain-on-neoliberalism

- Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/103/1038399/the-second-sex/9780099595731.html

- Find out more about Lauren Berlant's Cruel Optimism: https://www.dukeupress.edu/cruel-optimism

- Take a look at the Antiwork subreddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/

- Read Capital Realism by Mark Fisher: https://bookshop.org/books/capitalist-realism-is-there-no-alternative/9781846943171

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Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone.

Music by Poddington Bear under Creative Commons license.

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The Weekly Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation. Find out more at www.neweconomics.org