1. The future, including the future of work, harbours chances but some risks as well. This has always been the case. History shows that until now we in Europe have been able to use our chances. We have built a unified Europe, which is now proceeding toward a peaceful future. Who would have dreamt of such a thing at the end of World War II. We are adding many rooms to the European house in its eastward expansion. Who would have imagined this during the Cold War? We have got rid of customs and national currencies in order to optimally guarantee the four freedoms (goods, services, capital, persons). Who would have thought that self-willed nation-states would be prepared to do this?
2. History also shows that the pioneers of change have always had to invest a lot of energy in dealing with the faint-hearted and the prophets of doom. For example, theories have been repeatedly developed predicting the end of vital resources such as foodstuffs, oil, or work. In the 19th century the English economist Malthus predicted that the population would always grow faster than food production. Whereas the population grows exponentially (2,4,8...), food production can only be increased in linear progression (2,3,4...), implying a threat to the continuity of civilisation. In the 20th century the Club of Rome caused a big stir with its report "The Limits to Growth". The authors had calculated how long resources such as oil, coal, metals, etc. could be expected to hold forth.
3. Fortunately for us, neither of these theorists was proven right. Basically there is no lack of food in the world; and natural resources which should have long since been depleted, are still in production. The error of the researchers: they underestimated human insightfulness. Malthus couldn’t imagine the possible progress in agricultural technology. The Club of Rome wasn’t able to envision the energy-saving and energy acquisition possibilities we know of today - the three-litres car was inconceivable.
4. We should learn from this experience. The future, including the future of work, is not a stroke of fate we have to submit to. The future lies in our hands. We can actively structure tomorrow’s working world. For this we need, first of all, a resource that - contrary to soil or oil - is unlimited: thirst for knowledge and inventiveness. In addition to that we need the willingness to make new experiences.
5. An inventive spirit will prevent us from rationalising work out of existence. Even if we can produce goods we know at present with less work tomorrow, we will not run out of work. We will develop therapies with which we can heal illnesses considered terminal today. We will think up new products and services that will make our daily lives become easier and our leisure activities more colourful. To the question whether demand would ever reach a limit, Adam Smith answered already in 1776 "Even if the capacity of the stomach is limited - mankind’s need for the amenities of life is not."
6. The willingness to make new experiences is a prerequisite for perceiving chances offered to us. This also holds for tomorrow’s work. Here I think in particular about the structuring of working time. My vision - in the sense of idea and hope - is that in the future a company will think in terms of annual working time and the individual in terms of his lifelong working time.
7. If companies depart from rigid working time concepts and think instead in terms of annual working time, they will become more competitive. An industrial firm can run its machines more efficiently and react to variations in demand. Flexible working time enables a trading firm to cater optimally to the preferences of customers - to rush-hour, peak days and seasons.

• Flexible regulation of daily or weekly working time in order to co-ordinate family and working life,
• Sabbaticals for the sake of further education, thus making lifelong learning possible,
• A gliding transition into retirement.

1. If this vision is not to remain pie in the sky, if its potential freedom is to be realised, two prerequisites must be met:

• Honesty toward ourselves and others; for, as George Bernard Shaw said: "People prefer to be ruined by praise rather than improved through criticism."
• Realistic optimism: instead of complaining about the dangers, we should use the opportunities; as Jacques Delors said: "I am for the optimism of the will and the pessimism of clear-sightedness."

Biography

Bernhard Jagoda is a Christian Democratic politician, former MP and now President of the Federal Work Bureau. He was born in 1940 in Kirchwalde in Upper Silesia (now in Poland).

From 1955 to 1970 Bernhard Jagoda worked for the city council of Treysa (now Schwalmstadt) in Hessen, rising to Upper Secretary of the Social Welfare Department. Since 1965 he has worked for the CDU (Christian Democratic Union). He held numerous party offices at city, county and state level and, in 1970, became a member of the diet of Hessen. From 1976 onward, he was social policy speaker of the CDU diet fraction.

He was elected to the Bundestag (Germany’s Lower House of Parliament) in 1980 and 1983. From 1983 to 1985 he was chairman of the CDU/CSU fraction, from 1985 to 1987 the fraction’s social policy speaker and chairman of the working group Work and Social Affairs. From 1987 to 1990 Bernhard Jagoda was state secretary at the Ministry of Work and Social Affairs. During his term in office, he was in charge of negotiations for the social policy part of the EU unification treaty.

In 1990 Bernhard Jagoda returned to Parliament to which he belonged until his nomination as President of the Federal Work Bureau in early 1993.