“We are living through a digital revolution,” believes Gunther Oettinger, European Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society. Digital services are transforming every sector of our lives. At the final session of the second day of the ETUC-ETUI Conference on Shaping the New World of Work in Brussels, the Commissioner predicted that in the future, “anything that can be digitalised will be digitalised”, covering up to 90% of goods and services.

The digital workplace has introduced both exciting new possibilities and an unwelcome new dimension to the problem of work-related stress, according to Andrea Maria Nahles, Germany’s Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs. The key to dealing with both, she says, is flexibility.