Global Journal of Human Social Science, C: Sociology and Culture, Volume 23 Issue 6

his “ Farewell to work? ” 5 , seeking to oppose the end of work theorists. This was the display of forces that developed in the difficult 1990s, in which the neoliberal offensive sought to shatter with postmodern relativizations any notion that came close to Marxism or a thought of social transformation, and in this sense, denying the centrality of work became the number one point of the dominant programmatic booklet. The 2008 crisis reshuffled the cards and the neoliberal globalisation order was expressing its crisis, especially in times of recession, austerity plans, fiscal adjustments. However, in the face of moderate stabilization of the situation, the old theses of the end of work were once again forcefully resumed, but now covered by the new slogan of the moment: the fourth industrial revolution. A new era of communication that would be based on artificial intelligence (developed from Big Data technologies) and the internet of things, would be leading the world to enter a new moment of communicative and interactive capacity, expressed in social networks, now in its latest version with the Metaverse , which would supposedly revolutionize the jobs of the future (related to technological areas) and Hence, theories that are also classic in philosophy and cinema (including the resumption of the movie The Matrix ) that machines would evolve in their technological capacity to the point of gaining an autonomous consciousness flood social networks and serve as an ideological ferment for this idea that work is losing importance in society. But from an objective point of view, what have we seen happening? II. A n A sleep G iant Theories that artificial intelligence is creating the conditions for eliminating work face a subtle problem to defend their point of view: the tendencies of reality. This is because what we have seen in recent years, contrary to a progressive reduction of work, has been expressed in a systematic increase in the objective dimension of the international working class. This statement, which may seem controversial in the current economic and sociological debate, is easily proven by data from international agencies, such as the International Labour Organisation. According to a graph extracted from the World Bank based on ILO data 6 , the situation of the working class in the world today is as follows: The analysis of the graph leaves no doubt about the tendencies pointed out. It indicates that between 2000 and 2020, the international “Labor force” has grown from 2.7 billion people to 3.4 billion, an people, approximately the size of the entire European population. Effectively, the only moment of cleavage in © 2023 Global Journals Volume XXIII Issue VI Version I 2 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2023 C Beyond Fragmentation: Challenges of the World of Work in the Face of Ongoing Productive Restructuring 5 Antunes 2021 6 On the World Bank website, the chart can be accessed at: https:// data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.TOTL.IN increase in twenty years of no less than 700 million Source: World Bank even drastically reduces its importance and quantity.