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The continuing fallout from the great recession and the western debt crisis has led to much debate about public sector cuts, the 'squeezed middle', executive pay and the behaviour of 'vulture' capitalists. Much of the debate is predicated on the assumption that, although it will take longer than initially expected, Britain and other Western economies will eventually return to 'business as usual'. But our analysis of the labour market, as presented in The Global Auction, suggests that there will not be any such return.[1] Indeed, it is possible that the early decades of the twenty-first century will become known not for a Great Recession but for a Great Transformation, for reasons we explain below. Understanding how the labour market is being transformed is as much art as science and...