Resilience through re-skilling and upskilling for European labour markets in transition

Ongoing global challenges and the twin transition have enormous impacts on the structure of industries in the European countries and regions. Twin transition is defined as the coexistence and interplay of the two major transformational processes in contemporary society: green and digital transitions. Recent macroeconomic events, like the COVID-19 pandemic and energy crisis, but also changes into micro determinants of how people and businesses perceive and react to global challenges, affected the pace of both green and digital transitions. Amidst such fast-paced changes new industries emerge, while existing industries either need to adapt and transform or they render obsolete. This transformation of European industries results in a profound reshaping of the labour market, jobs and necessary competencies and is likely to lead to skill mismatches. When industries cannot meet, attract nor develop the necessary skills or transfer them from other industries this has substantial implications for workers and territories, challenging the resilience of the labour markets and consequently having impact on both economic growth and social inclusion. The aim of SkillResilience4EU is to reframe the concept of resilience of the European labour markets under the fast pace digital (e.g., big data use, IoT, A.I.) and green (e.g., renewable energy, circular economy) changes, proposing ways to narrow the labour market mismatches through reskilling and upskilling. To achieve its aim SkillResilience4EU has three main objectives, each one of which is divided into further secondary objectives: Objective 1: We will investigate the resilience of the European labour markets, through identifying job creation and job destruction processes triggered by the twin transition, micro-level factors (i.e., people’s and businesses’ perceptions of great challenges), and macro drivers (i.e., pandemic and energy crisis). Objective 2: We will explore the favourable conditions and mechanisms, but also the obstacles and barriers that have impact on the resilience of the labour markets due to the twin transition ongoing in different European regions and industries. Objective 3: We will examine the possible designs of skilling, reskilling and upskilling of labour to ensure smooth transitions to the emerging jobs and sectors, increasing the future resilience of the labour markets.