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As AI technologies continue to develop rapidly, predictions of labour market impacts range from far reaching substitution of both routine and non-routine work, to more moderate expectations. In many sectors, the changes appear to be more incremental than what tech visionaries assume. Improvements in job quality are found, as well as work intensification. Skill needs are often increasing rather than decreasing. Further challenges are emerging to representation of workers’ interests, as algorithm- and AI-based systems may be deployed in more opaque and complex ways than other digital technologies for which consultation and co-determination have been established in countries and sectors with strong social partnership.

Our webinar will feature presentations from researchers who will share insights from several case studies:

Ursula Holtgrewe (ZSI) will discuss how digital changes impact workplaces in the manufacturing and services sectors, based on case studies from Project UNTANGLED.

Anna Milanez (OECD) will present recent findings from an OECD study.

Trine Pernille Larsen and Anna Ilsøe (FAOS) will share findings from the INCODING project.

To register and receive a Zoom link, please email Leonie Dworsky at dworsky@zsi.at.

In the policy brief: ‘Ensuring the quality of new and existing jobs’, researchers from the three-year project looked into recent policy proposals aiming to enhance both work and life quality and the delicate balance between them. Drawing on findings from Project UNTANGLED, expert consultations, and stakeholder inputs, they identify areas of policy that can be improved or need further consideration.

“While labour markets in the EU are doing well, technological advances and demographic changes will affect not only the number but also the quality of jobs in the coming years,” said Mikkel Barslund, UNTANGLED project coordinator and research manager at HIVA-KU Leuven, who co-authored the policy brief. “We need to ensure that the policies we are implementing now will contribute to shared prosperity.”

The COVID-19 crisis accelerated the adoption of working-from-home, praised by many for fostering employee autonomy, reducing work pressure, and increasing work effort. However, with the surge in teleworking, the drawbacks have become more apparent, including hindering team collaboration, triggering feelings of isolation, and extending working hours. Furthermore, the fact that not all workers can perform their tasks from home worsens working workplace relations and creates inequality. To address these challenges, UNTANGLED researchers argue that employers and employees should discuss and agree on the optimal number of teleworking days and workplace rules.

Digitalisation and teleworking have also blurred the lines between home and work life, prompting employees to respond to calls, texts, and emails at all hours. Several EU countries have implemented or are considering legislation safeguarding the “right to disconnect” to prevent burnout and help workers re-establish work-life balance. Yet, Ludivine Martin, a researcher at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), part of the UNTANGLED consortium, cautions against one-size-fits-all solutions, such as blocking server usage during weekends, and emphasises the need for tailored strategies that take into account sector, occupational, and technological nuances of work outside regular hours.

Another technological development, the emergence of platforms such as Uber, Deliveroo and Bolt, has given rise to new forms of work that are organised and regulated in new ways. Platform workers, representing around 5% of employees, are exposed to limited labour protections, predominantly low and irregular income, and lack of control over working conditions. Due to their relatively new status, unregulated nature, and fast development, platform jobs create challenges that policymakers are now trying to address at the EU and national levels. The UNTANGLED researchers argue that in addition to regulating their legal employment status, granting platform workers collective bargaining rights is also crucial for improving their well-being, social protection and fair working conditions.

“Many challenges in regulating platform work arise from its uncertain legal status and varied regulations across countries,” said co-author Adrien Thomas, a researcher at the LISER. “Governments and the EU have to define the status of platform workers and whether they should be considered employees or independent workers. Digital platform companies often position themselves as mere ‘intermediaries’ between service providers and clients, aiming to evade the responsibilities of an employer.”

Last month the EU reached a provisional agreement on the Platform Work Directive, which aims to ensure the correct classification of platform workers’ employment status. The new rules introduce a presumption of an employment relationship, and still need to be adopted by both the European Parliament and the Council to enter into force.

At the same time as workers, companies and governments are wrestling with the implications of these new technologies, the ageing population is becoming a major challenge for labour markets, increasing the demand for health and long-term care (LTC) workers. Many EU member states are already grappling with significant labour shortages in these sectors, marked by low pay, high turnover, and poor working conditions. LTC workers are particularly exposed to a lack of full-time work.

Urging prompt government action, the UNTANGLED researchers propose policies to attract and retain workers in the health and LTC sectors, including raising wages, improving working conditions, and increasing staffing ratios to lighten workloads. Governments could also use their influence to encourage private facilities that receive public funds to adhere to collective bargaining agreements or meet higher job-quality standards, such as minimum wages. Policymakers should also explore strategies for attracting migrant workers, including programmes that help integrate foreign workers into local systems and re-evaluating qualifications and language requirements, the researchers said.

Barslund, M. et al. (2023). UNTANGLED Policy brief: Ensuring the quality of new and existing jobs (Deliverable 7.2) Leuven: UNTANGLED project 1001004776 – H2020.

You can read the policy brief here.

In their paper “Automation in Shared Services Centres: Implications for Skills and Autonomy in a Global Organisation”, Zuzanna Kowalik, Piotr Lewandowski, Tomasz Geodecki, and Maciej Grodzicki investigated SSCs, which are business units that handle back-office functions such as accounting, finance, human resources, and IT, to assess how automating tasks affects both the quantity and the quality of jobs.

“Our study found that robots, algorithms, and bots introduced to SSCs did not reduce headcount or employees’ workloads, but changed the tasks they performed,” said Zuzanna Kowalik of the Institute for Structural Research. “These technologies eliminated “click work”, the monotonous, laborious tasks that workers find undesirable.”

The researchers focused on the Polish SSC sector due to its popularity with global companies setting up such facilities. While the sector has experienced rapid growth over the last two decades, accounting for 6.7% of total business sector employment in Poland, it is marked by routine-intensive, repetitive jobs, making it particularly vulnerable to automation. The adoption of technologies such as robot process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI), and intelligent process automation (IPA) can easily replace human labour.

In recent years, Polish service centres have increasingly adopted automation, with almost 60% now using solutions based on IPA, and an additional 30% planning implementation to optimise costs. Yet fears that automation will reduce employment have not yet materialised.

This automation surge is happening against the backdrop of a labour shortage. The supply of educated graduates, a primary labour source for service centres, has dwindled due to demographic declines. Simultaneously, corporate headquarters have delegated more complex tasks to centres in Poland. With the growing demand for more complex skills and a limited number of people who can perform standard tasks, the automation of routine functions has emerged as a pragmatic solution to address labour shortages and improve the appeal of SSC jobs, facilitating the recruitment and retention of qualified candidates.

“Employees of SCCs aren’t afraid of automation; it makes their work easier, and they can focus on more interesting, challenging tasks,” says study co-author Piotr Lewandowski. “In this sense, automation improved job quality by eliminating most mundane and repetitive chores.”

While the approach to automation varies among firms, the researchers observed that employees of SSCs that adopt a bottom-up approach tend to enjoy greater autonomy and higher job satisfaction. This approach assumes active worker engagement in the automation process, with employees developing micro-solutions or enhancements to simplify and significantly shorten processes.

Furthermore, employee involvement in the automation process contributes to skill development. As tasks evolve, workers must adapt to more advanced roles, emphasising personal and professional expertise. Entry-level workers benefit from increased demand for skills such as critical thinking.

Kowalik, Z., Lewandowski, P., Geodecki, T., Grodzicki, M. (2023). Automation in Shared Service Centres: Implications for Skills and Autonomy in a Global Organisation,  IBS Working Paper 08/2023

“Digitalisation and automation aren’t as detrimental to the current organisation of production networks as previously thought,” said Isabelle Rabaud, a professor in international economics at Université d’Orléans, in France, and co-author of the study.

“Rather, technologies tend to strengthen existing backward and forward links that already exist between countries,” Rabaud said.

Economists have long understood that robotics and high-tech innovations can fuel productivity gains, but little focus has been paid to how technology affects where production is located globally. This knowledge gap includes whether the adoption of robots will lead to “reshoring,” the process of returning production to Europe from abroad.

To address this academic shortcoming, Rabaud together with colleagues from Université d’Orléans, Camelia Turcu and Marcel Voia and Robert Stehrer from the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, reviewed data from the OECD, the World Bank, the Centre d’Études Prospectives et d’Informations Internationales (CEPII), and the International Federation of Robotics. Using these data as inputs, the researchers created two models to test technologies’ effect on production networks.

In the first model, foreign value added in gross exports was analysed from 63 origin countries present in the exports of 27 EU destination countries. Internet use and broadband subscriptions were used to determine the role of digitalisation on the importance of backward global value chain (GVC) participation. The researchers speculated that higher degree of diffusion of ICTs would raise backward linkages in line with easier communication and lower costs of coordination.

Twenty-eight sectors in 36 non-EU countries of origin were examined. Sectors included transport, postal activities, accommodation and food services, insurance, and financial services.

To capture the effects on forward GVC participation, the researchers created a second model to simulate the effect of robot use in imported intermediate products (such as raw materials, ingredients, energy, and services) on the receiving industry in the destination country.

Using gravity equations, the researchers confirmed that the industrial use of robot, internet use and fixed broadband subscriptions in both origin and destination countries tend to increase fordward GVC participation. Results on backward GVC participation were more mixed.

“As economist Richard Baldwin famously suggested, technology enabled localized concentration of production and trade, in what he termed ‘factory Europe,’ ‘factory Americas,’ and ‘factory Asia,’” said study co-author Stehrer. “Our findings reinforce this and confirm technology’s leading role in the regional organisation of production.”

Rabaud,I., Stehrer, R., Turcu, C., Voia, M. (2023). The impact of technology and connectivity on trade patterns (Deliverable 3.4). Leuven: UNTANGLED project 1001004776 – H2020.

The paper is available here.

During the 22 November online debate, part of the final conference of Project UNTANGLED, moderator Karolien Lenaerts (HIVA-KU Leuven) posed the question of whether we are approaching a golden age for workers. In response, most panellists agreed that the growing labour shortages are exerting upward pressure on wages and working conditions, theoretically brightening the prospects for employees.

Frank Siebern-Thomas (Green, and Digital Transitions, Research Unit, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, European Commission) highlighted that three-fourths of European SMEs currently face skills and labour shortages, while two-thirds of European companies cannot find IT specialists. While optimistic about worker prospects, he underscored the risks and structural challenges that EU governments and firms must address. These challenges include reskilling the European workforce to adapt to evolving job roles resulting from technological advances and the transition to a green economy.

Siebern-Thomas also noted that the European Commission is aware of these challenges and committed to addressing them through initiatives such as the European Year of Skills, focusing on upskilling, training, and innovation initiatives across member states.

“Is this a golden age for workers? Maybe, but much depends on policies and their effective implementation,” Siebern-Thomas said.

Melanie Arntz (ZEW), also optimistic about workers’ prospects, emphasised additional challenges that must be addressed for a golden age to materialise. She said particular attention should be directed to taxes and transfer systems and how they create incentives for working full-time. Arntz also raised concerns about AI and other technologies potentially devaluing certain skills and knowledge, leading to declining returns on formal education.

“It will be more difficult for people to guess what the return on formal education will be, which means they may underinvest in education because they might not be sure how much they’ll get out of it,” she said. “Therefore, we should provide as much transparency as we can on all these trends, so people can orient themselves around this new labour market.”

Arntz also highlighted another challenge: technology-driven mental stress among workers.

Marguerita Lane (Future of Work team, OECD) focused on the positive impact AI can have on the workforce. She highlighted the technology’s potential to boost productivity, alleviate sluggish growth, reduce the need for human labour in routine and manual work, and liberate workers from unsafe, repetitive, and monotonous tasks. Lane stressed that AI also has the potential to bridge inequality by enabling lower-skilled workers to level up. Similar to previous speakers, Lane emphasised that these positive outcomes can only materialise with the right policies and social safety nets in place.

“It is about policy choices; in this disruptive time, we need a smooth transition, and for this we need public services, governments, and companies to support workers displaced by new technologies,” Lane said.

Robert Stehrer (wiiw) took a less optimistic stance on the prospects for workers. Citing recent literature, he argued that the impact of new technologies such as AI on the labour market may not be very significant, and might not help overcome labour shortages. Stehrer also highlighted that the shrinking and ageing of the EU population places a burden on the healthcare and pension systems. According to Stehrer, it is plausible that we are entering a period of secular stagnation: a prolonged period of negligible economic growth.

“Even if there are higher wages, these will need to be taxed to meet the demands of the healthcare and pension system,” Stehrer concluded.

The discussion also covered areas such as working conditions, the challenges faced by platform workers, the potential and the difficulties of undeclared work, opportunities for migration to the EU, and gender dimensions within the workforce. Additionally, it explored how the evolving labour market is influencing the welfare state.

The UNTANGLED debate sheds light on the broad and diverse landscape of opportunities and challenges that makes up today’s labour market. The path to any golden age for workers must pass through that terrain, and technological advances in and of themselves aren’t enough to ensure a safe journey. Instead, it will require thoughtful implementation of policies that uphold the well-being and resilience of the workforce in the face of unprecedented changes.

Speaking on the panel “Poverty and Inequality Proofing of Policies for a Fair Twin Transition”, Doorley unveiled an UNTANGLED paper’s findings illustrating that tax and welfare policies can alleviate the impact of automation on income inequality.

The panel focused on the significance of Distributional Impact Assessment (DIA) in the context of policies and reforms implemented by Member States to support the digital (and green) transition. DIA plays a crucial role in measuring how these policies affect different segments of the population in terms of poverty and inequality. Other panellists included Sara De la Rica, the Director of ISEAK; Salvador Barrios, Head of the Fiscal Policy Analysis Unit of the Joint Research Centre, European Commission; and Cinzia Alcidi, Head of the Economic Policy and Jobs & Skills Unit at CEPS.

This year’s edition of the European Social Forum, hosted by the European Commission, centred around the impact of AI on the world of work. The conference aimed to discuss how EU policy can influence and address AI innovation in member countries, protecting workers’ rights throughout the Union.

Event Details:

Date: 22 November

Time: 4:00-5:30

Location: Online

The event will take place at KU Leuven on the Campus of Social Sciences on 23 November 2023 and feature a keynote address from Professor Melanie Arntz, Deputy Head of ZEW’s Labour Markets and Social Insurance Research Unit: “Different Perspectives on the Digital Transformation of the Labour Market.”

We will have nine sessions and over 30 papers:

1. Jobs and their quality
2. Global value chains
3. Skills and tasks
4. Inside firms and organisations
5. Technology, jobs and wages
6. Platform and flexible work
7. Technology adoption
8. Regional and structural change
9. Training, skills and working conditions

All the detailed information is in the Programme available HERE.

Register before November 12 HERE

Any queries can be emailed to Ilse Tobback at: ilse.tobback@kuleuven.be

Roberta Capello, Camilla Lenzi and Elisa Panzera from Politecnico di Milano presented their collaborative work within the framework of Project UNTANGLED, “The nexus between the digital service economy and intraregional wage inequalities”.

Additionally, Roberta Capello and Andrea Caragliu discussed their most recent UNTANGLED paper, “European integration and global cooperation: Long-run scenarios assessed with the MASST5”.

NARSC is an international organisation whose mission is promoting the exchange of knowledge, theory, and analysis of cities and regions on a global scale.

Conference Programme is available here.