Blog Economie Numérique – The digital divide, a social obstacle to employment

2023-05-29 09:06:05

The use of digital technology has become essential, both in our personal lives and in our professional lives. At work, digital has reached all types of jobs, even those considered to be the most “traditional”. Lack of digital skills ranked number one among social barriers to employmentprobably for two main interrelated reasons.

Digital skills are now considered basic skills needed to access most jobs. Indeed, in the tertiary sector, for example, employers are looking for candidates capable of using common software such as Microsoft Office, using electronic communication tools such as e-mail and instant messaging, and navigating the Internet effectively.

The need for digital skills spare no sector. Companies are looking to automate their processes to allow employees to focus on value-added tasks and gain in efficiency, and digital technologies are full of solutions in this direction. As a result, digital is integrated into the company, whether in terms of internal and external communication, project management, or even data collection, budget management, and depending on the sector, manufacturing planning. , MES, ERP, …

However, if the benefits of digital autonomy are indeed numerous at work, they are also source of inequality between workers. Indeed, some job seekers find themselves excluded and in difficulty due to their lack of digital skills and part of the workers find themselves struggling with the digital tasks they have to perform. These inequalities can be accompanied psychosocial risks, of stress, of feeling of downgrading or even discouragement…

These inequalities are called the digital divide., that is, the unequal access, skills and use of information and communication technologies (ICT) between different populations. According to the Minister in charge of the Digital Transition and Telecommunications Jean-Noël Barrot, one in three French people is far from digital, that is to say nearly 16 million French people. Among the people identified as particularly vulnerable are seniors and retirees, precarious and low-income people, people with disabilities and prisoners. Three main aspects summarize the major difficulties that these audiences face in the face of digital technology:

• Lack of computer equipment or network access are the first two. Although they have evolved in recent years thanks to 4G and very high speed coverage programs on French territory, and to a better rate of household equipment, many people still do not have digital access in France.
• Lack of digital skills is the third part. This is illectronism, that is to say the lack of digital autonomy.

Our ambition is clear: to make France the first country in the world to structure local support for citizens remote from digital technology. The digital transition will only be successful if no one is left behind.

— Jean-Noel Barrot (@jnbarrot) April 7, 2023

2. Essential digital in the job search

More and more job offers go through the Internet, either directly on the company’s website, or on professional social networks. such as LinkedIn, or on online recruitment sites. People who do not have the necessary digital skills are therefore de facto excluded from these opportunities, which represents a social obstacle to employment, which further excludes people who are often already far from employment. However, according to a study conducted in 2019 by Pôle emploi, job seekers are more connected than others since 95% of them used the internet, compared to a French average of 88%.

Job search is an additional challenge for digitally-disabled people, from the development of their CV, through research and identification of job offers, to the first contacts with recruiters. Digital is therefore a real lever for integration into employment, in the same way that it has become essential for school and academic success. Nevertheless, the Internet appears to be more effective in the recruitment of qualified executives and personnel, “the latter lending themselves better to remote selection on the basis of objectifiable matching benchmarks”, as explained by Marie Benedetto-Meyer and Anca Boboc in their work Sociology of the digital at work (2021). Furthermore, the authors explain that as a result of the use of the internet for recruitment, the application form is somewhat trivialized since “the possibility of applying in a few clicks has lowered the level of self-censorship of candidates and led to an increase in so-called unqualified applications”.

Finally, digital inclusion at work appears as a key lever for business performance and sustainability. The world of work being transformed by digital uses, companies promote the well-being of their employees by offering them the means to improve their skills and performance by encouraging internal digital inclusion.

Sources :

• Benedetto-Meyer, Marie, and Anca Boboc. Sdigital sociology at work. Armand Colin, 2021
• Bessy C., Marchal E. (2006), “Using the internet to recruit: at the limits of remote selection”The IRES review, n° 52
• Image source: Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

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