C1 Reading – Future of Work: Automation, Identity & Meaning

Read the passage (≈380–420 words) and choose the best answer (A–D).

For more than a century, people have worried that machines would take every job. What has actually happened is messier: tasks are automated, roles are redesigned, and new forms of work appear alongside the old. The question is no longer whether automation will arrive, but how we will live with it—socially and psychologically.

In many offices, software handles routine coordination—scheduling, basic analysis, even first drafts of emails—freeing humans for work that seems, at least in principle, more creative. Yet employees often report the opposite: with output accelerating, expectations rise as well, and “time saved” is recaptured by fresh demands. The promise of liberation can turn into what scholars call productivity creep, an ambient pressure to do more because the tools allow it.

Factories show a different paradox. Collaborative robots (“cobots”) reduce injury and stabilize quality, but they can also narrow the zone where workers feel uniquely competent. Pride once tied to manual mastery may shift toward troubleshooting, data monitoring, or continuous improvement. Some adapt happily; others sense a silent demotion when tacit skills are embedded in a machine.

Meaning, then, becomes central. When tasks are sliced thinner and handed to systems, identity can feel outsourced, too. People who define themselves by craft or service may experience a loss that raises no headline—but accumulates as disengagement. In response, forward-looking firms try job crafting: redesigning roles so that human judgment, mentorship, and customer empathy are not afterthoughts but explicit responsibilities. Training follows the same logic: less “learn to use tool X,” more “learn to frame problems, critique outputs, and decide when not to automate.”

Policy debates often fixate on headline numbers—jobs lost, jobs gained—while ignoring distribution. Transitions are uneven across regions, ages, and sectors; the pain concentrates while the gains disperse. Safety nets help, but timing matters: if help arrives after belonging is already fractured, resentment hardens. Ultimately, the future of work is less a technological forecast than a civic choice. Tools will keep improving. Whether people feel replaced or enlarged by them depends on how organizations allocate discretion, how communities share risk, and how seriously we treat meaning as a design constraint—not a perk.