Work, that activity that we do primarily for money, will be fused into the rest of our lives to a much greater extent than is the case today. The distinctions between volunteer work, school work, house work, child care work and paid work will become less. As well, the boundaries between full- and part-time work, permanent and contract work, and working for others and being self-employed will grow less distinct.

These changes will be the result of the increasing instability of the labour market. Workers are less and less willing to commit to one job or employer for 30 or 40 years. At the same time, employers are equally unwilling to offer long-term employment. Both for workers and employers, the rate of economic, technological and lifestyle change is just too great to make more than relatively short-term commitments.

Many jobs will change, and some will become obsolete, in the next several decades due to technology. In 10 years, most cashier jobs will have disappeared, especially those in large supermarkets and department type stores. Indeed, technological change will be most profound for service sector workers as computers learn to take on new tasks, such as speech recognition.

Canadians, now integrated more than ever into the global economy, will become accustomed to having their work increasingly affected by events from afar. Already New Brunswick competes with India for the location of telephone call centres, and southern Ontario for auto plants with Mexico.

In the changes to come, the gulf between the good jobs (those that provide satisfaction) and the bad jobs (those that just pay the bills) will grow. The good jobs will have smooth transitions between school and work, and between one job or type of work and the next, accompanied by new career opportunities. The bad jobs will involve abrupt and involuntary shifts and jarring transitions caused by lay-offs, downsizing and wage cuts. Those in bad jobs will face very limited choices in the labour market, in the same way that those laid-off today from assembly line jobs have few employment options.

The "front-end loading" of education will become less common in the next several decades. In other words, long years of education will no longer be followed by many years in the workforce. Instead, education and training will occur in spurts throughout one's life, sometimes out of necessity, other times to change careers or just to learn new skills.

Mandatory retirement will wither away as workers, and employers, realize that a person's 65th birthday does not indicate the onset of mental or physical decay. Out of financial necessity and also boredom, many people will work in some capacity past today's normal age of retirement. Consider that a woman retiring at age 60 today has, on average, nearly another quarter century to live and support herself. That is a long time indeed, which will almost certainly become even longer as more Canadians live healthy lives well into their 80s and 90s.

The future of work for many Canadians will involve hard decisions: whether to return to school, to become an entrepreneur, to have less paid work and spend additional time with younger and older family members, and so forth. More Canadians, even those with high levels of education, will become unemployed at least once, if not several times.

Men will have to learn new roles in balancing home and work, including being more involved in raising children. Women, on the other hand, will continue to struggle to reach greater equality in the labour market.

The large number of older Canadians will need to make decisions – such as how work fits into their long retirement years – which no previous generation has had to make. On the other hand, Canada's young people will face tough decisions about their own careers, given the high cost of college and university, and the inability to predict what jobs will be available for them in even a few years.

The role of both labour unions and of government in the future of work remains murky. In one scenario, both may shrivel leaving the operation of the labour market only to demand and supply with few rules. If this is the case, individual workers will be solely responsible for their fates.

The other scenario is for unions and government to play active roles, as is currently the case in European countries, protecting wages and working conditions. In this future, government would support those who need education and training to find good jobs, or have proceeded on a path that turns out to be a dead-end in the labour market.

Some features of the future of work are not within the control of Canadians, but are driven by forces outside our borders. Yet, important aspects of the future of work are shaped by the decisions and choices we make today. After all, the future is the child of the present.