The discussion during the third WeLaR Virtual Expert Café, hosted by the Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI) on 19 September 2024, focused on four research papers exploring key labour market challenges: income inequality, algorithmic management (AI/AM), education-labour market mismatches, and migrant integration in the context of digitalisation.
Tatjana Neuhuber from the Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI) presented her research on the impact of public social expenditure in reducing local income inequality in Austria. She found that both municipal and provincial social spending—on education, health, and social protection—play a critical role in mitigating inequality. However, the effects of social spending vary widely between regions, with some areas seeing more significant reductions in inequality than others.
Ursula Holtgrewe, also from the ZSI, presented the findings of her report written for the INCODING project, examining how European social partners (unions, employers, and governments) are addressing the rise of AI and algorithmic management. While a few Joint Declarations in data-intensive sectors and some company-level agreements have emerged on a European level, such as Just Eat Takeaway’s European Works Council and UNI Global’s deal with Teleperformance, the overall social dialogue on AI has been sluggish. Employers express “regulation fatigue” in response to the EU’s AI Act, while unions push for stronger protections, including a proposed “AI in the Workplace” Directive. The research points out the challenges in implementing transparency and “human-in-control” mechanisms in AI-based systems and in making them accessible to social dialogue.
Sofie Cabus of KU Leuven introduced a novel approach to measuring education-labour market mismatches, using the “linkage score.” This indicator measures how well educational qualifications match the jobs and sectors in which graduates find employment. Her research shows that countries like Norway, Slovenia, and Switzerland have high linkage scores, indicating a good match between education and the labour market’s needs. Meanwhile, countries such as Italy and Spain fare poorly, with low scores suggesting a widespread mismatch between graduates’ qualifications and their jobs.
Sarah McNamara from ZEW Mannheim presented the preliminary results of her research that builds on a recent WeLaR report on the integration of migrants into Europe’s labour market. She looked into how digitalisation is reshaping the position of migrants in the labour market and found that it may have offered new opportunities for migrants, with many of them starting more advanced work in occupations with non-routine cognitive and analytical tasks in recent years.
You can access the presentations here.
