The impact of Metaverse on work life: A Delphi study

Humanity has some ancient subtexts, universal concerns, curiosities, fears, and hopes. From the earliest times of humanity, when faced with a technology, the topics they ask themselves and discuss are similar to each other. The technology that takes us to the next step of our civilization has the power to fundamentally change almost all areas of life, our behaviours and habit, from the homes we live in to the cars we use, from the food and clothing we consume, to our relationships with our pets from the visions of companies to the constitutions of countries and their territorial integrity. Just like before the ages, great transformations bring along great sociological, economic, psychological and similar changes. Technologies such as Metaverse, which emerged with the rapid change and development of technology every day, have started to radically change the lifestyles and habits of the society, especially after the pandemic. This change has many economic and sociological effects. These effects are result in positive and negative consequences. The working life of people has also been seriously affected by these changes and has taken on a whole new dimension. Millions of people have lost their jobs and at the same time, it has created new job opportunities for millions of people. It has revealed concepts such as the creative economy and enabled people to be both employees and entrepreneurs. By understanding the Metaverse, which is perhaps the most important of today's technological developments set forth with this study, roughly at the core of technology and innovations by with the conveying to those who are interested and curious which direction the world the people living in it are going is to discuss the past, present and future of the change in people's working life. In the study, the relationship between Metaverse and working life was questioned. Delphi technique was used as research model. The first round of the Delphi analysis, which was carried out in three rounds with 11 experts in the field, was deepened with swot analysis, in the second round, a 5-point Likert scale was applied to the keywords of the experts and the consensus ratios of the experts were determined. In the third round, the questions that could not be agreed upon were sent back to the experts and measurements were made. As a result, Metaverse, which hosts great opportunities and threats together, will create a new economy, while eliminating many jobs, it will also create many new jobs. For example, non-previous occupations such as Virtual real estate professionals, blockchain experts and developers, VR game designers and developers, risk management specialists and marketing managers will both arise and pre-existing and evolving professions. Keywords: Metaverse, Work Life, Artificial Intelligence, Swot, Delphi