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Shaping Europe’s digital future
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Final report of the High-Level Expert Group on the Impact of the Digital Transformation on EU Labour Markets

The High-Level Expert Group on the Impact of the Digital Transformation on EU Labour Markets, created by the European Commission in May 2018, issued its final report with recommendations on 8 April 2019.

Following an open selection process, the Commission appointed group of experts to a High-Level Expert Group (HLG) on the Impact of the Digital Transformation on EU Labour Markets, comprising representatives from academia, civil society, as well as industry.

On April 8th 2019 the High-Level Expert Group issued the final report with the recommendations including policy actions for the European Union, Member States, businesses and other stakeholders in the short, mid and long-term, to shape the digital transformation of the world of work and make it smooth, inclusive and human-centric.

 

Summary of the recommendations

 

A skilled workforce – ready to contribute to tomorrow's world of work:

  • Enabling digital skills personal learning accounts, allows workers to acquire relevant skills throughout their careers in order to stay relevant in rapidly transforming, digital labour markets. The accounts would belong to the worker and would be portable from job to job. Details such as contributions, number of hours per year, top ups, eligible expenses, withdrawal processes and taxing schemes will be determined later.
  • Scaling up career counselling and creating innovative learning environments to enable better career choices and active pursuit of relevant training for all Europeans. Career counselling could be supported through establishing quality training standards and "digital literacy" for career counsellors at the European level. Communities of practice could foster informal group learning at workplace.
  • Supporting labour market intermediaries to reduce structural skill gaps especially for women in STEM, workers at risk of automation and the ow-skilled. Intermediaries (such as public employment services, outplacement offices or temporary agencies) would invest in on-the-job training provided they can recoup the training cost from employers who on their turn will benefit from trained workers.

 

New labour relations – adapting structures to today's realities:

  • Preventing occupational safety and health risks like mental health and stress related issues resulting from digitalisation and increased volatility in today's world of work, e.g. through an increased focus on prevention in employee assistance programs and improving uptake by increasing social acceptance through informed discourse and the delivery of personalized, cost-effective solutions enabled by technology.
  • Equalizing the (administrative) treatment of standard and non-standard work arrangements e.g. by providing equal access to government services, credit lines and limited mobility of benefits regardless of employment status.
  • Reinvigorating social dialogue through intensified and better organized dialogue of workers and social partners especially in the platform economy; e.g. by allowing workers to discuss issues in a bottom up manner  in dedicated, moderated online spaces (Social Worknets) , and actively inviting both unions and employers as well as platform operators to participate in an ongoing exchange for improved collective outcomes (Social Digilogue).

 

A new social contract – upgrading the social fabric of our labour markets:

  • Ensuring neutral social protection against unemployment, sickness and other life circumstances independent of employment status. The increasing number of Europeans with non-standard employment should have access to social protection e.g. through portable benefits attached to the worker rather than the job or the establishment of an "underemployment insurance" to smooth out fluctuating incomes in the gig economy.
  • Creating a Digital Single Window for employment contributions and taxes for self-employed working on online platforms for multiple and rapidly changing employers. Through a digital interface, automated reports from platform companies would allow collecting earnings data in a standardized digital format to reduce the cost of compliance.
  • Redistributing the value of digital ownership, e.g. through treating data as either capital, labour or intellectual property.  To the extent that workers’ and consumers’ data are used to increase the firm’s value, this should be recognised and compensated accordingly.

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Final Report HLG on the Impact of the Digital Transformation on EU Labour Markets
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