SEVENTH UNTANGLED EXPERT CAFÉ HOSTS FIVE PRESENTATIONS

The 25 May meet-up organised by ZSI hosted five presentations:

Francesco Venturini (University of Perugia) presented his paper titled “Unsliceing the Pie: AI Innovation and Labour Share in European Regions.” The study investigated the impact of AI patents on the distribution of income between capital and labour, finding that in regions specialising in AI development the labour share decreases. This supports the notion of a decoupling effect caused by AI. Additionally, Venturini found that more AI patents in the region have a negative impact on the labour share of low-skilled workers. The presentation highlighted that the negative effects of AI are similar to those of other innovations.

Michela Vecchi (Kingston University) presented a paper co-authored with Mary O’Mahony and Catherine Robinson, examining the decline in the wage premium for highly skilled workers in Europe. Their findings indicate that both demand and supply factors contribute to the shrinking of wage premiums. On the demand side, the research shows that the association of technology and high skills has weakened, especially following the financial crisis. Additionally, the presence of intangible assets is found to be negatively correlated with the wage premium for skilled workers. On the supply side, the increasing number of workers with tertiary-level education has pushed down the wages of highly skilled individuals relative to those with lower skills.

Fynn Thjorben Semken (ÖSB Social Innovation) presented a research project titled Health Sensor for Digital Work, funded by the Austrian Chamber of Labour. This project aims to examine the effects of digital technologies that companies use to organise work on employee health. The primary objective is to develop a prototype tool that can assist companies in assessing whether health issues experienced by employees are linked to the extensive use of digital technologies in their professional lives. The project also aims to identify solutions to mitigate negative impacts such as digital stress. It involves companies, a tech provider and a consultancy. Final results can be expected in Spring 2024.

Ludivine Martin (LISER) discussed her collaborative research with Kamil Filipek and Thiago Brant, which examines whether current typologies of digital skills are adequate to capture the evolving nature of work and to single out digital skills that are the most sought-after by companies. They analyse online job vacancies from Lightcast (formerly Burning Glass Technologies Europe) for 2021 from France, Germany, Belgium, and Luxembourg.

Stella Wolter (ZSI) presented The Lost Millennials Project, funded by an EEA and Norway Grant which aims to enhance the integration of 25+ NEETs, i.e. people aged from 25 to 29 who are neither in employment, education or training, into the labour market or into learning. One of the ways of providing better support to this group is to exchange and improve the evaluation practices of labour market initiatives targeting this group. Generally, the group of NEETs is found to be composed of varied groups in different countries and structured by gender (women and parents in unpaid care work), disability and other health conditions, the rural/urban divide, (lack of) education, and precarious employment opportunities in their respective labour markets. The project also aims to learn more about the effects of education and/or employment initiatives and to enhance stakeholders’ capacity to carry out impact studies.

The collected slides with further links to the respective projects and outputs are available here.

The  next Café will be held on 21 September at 2 pm.