Debate: A social Europe in a Digital world
Date: WEDNESDAY, 12 FEBRUARY 2020
Speaker: Nicolas Schmit
Language: FR

La question de l’emploi est sûrement au centre des interrogations. Combien d’emplois vont disparaître, remplacés par des robots? Ce qui est d’ores et déjà certain, c’est que la majorité des emplois vont être transformés. De nouveaux emplois vont apparaître quand d’autres disparaîtront ou connaîtront de profonds bouleversements. Il est prévu que l’intelligence artificielle et la robotique créeront à elles seules près de 60 millions d’emplois dans le monde au cours des cinq prochaines années et déjà aujourd’hui, cela a été mentionné, près d’un million d’emplois TIC sont vacants, faute de candidats ayant les bonnes qualifications. C’est d’ailleurs le principal souci de nombreuses entreprises, surtout de PME, qui ne trouvent pas de personnel qualifié. C’est aussi un défi majeur pour nos politiques de l’emploi et de qualification.  We have acted on the green transition by launching the Just Transition Fund for regions and people most affected by these changes. Likewise, we need to strengthen much more our employment and social policies to anticipate and manage the disruptive changes expected from digitalisation. There are – and it has been already mentioned – a lot of very good opportunities, but there are also risks of widening inequalities and more precariousness. Over 90% of jobs now require some level of digital skills, as does participation in society at large, yet 43% of the EU population have an insufficient level of digital skills and 17% have none at all. Next month we will propose a new skills agenda to address the skills challenges through concrete instruments and this challenge is huge because, according to a lot of forecasts, about half of the European workforce, meaning more than 120 million people have to be re—skilled or upskilled. So, we have three major aims. The first one is engaging employers to upscale their training provision, and for that purpose, we want to launch a skills pact committing companies, committing the business community to invest in their workforce. Second, we have to step up public and private investment in training according to this need I just mentioned. And third, we have to empower people to invest in their own skills and qualifications. Many of our initiatives post 2020 will address these challenges linked to digitalisation. The European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) will support projects, such as the creation of e—schools with digitally trained teachers or training unemployed people for ICT jobs. And I’m working on a reinforced Youth Guarantee to provide a much stronger coverage of digital skills. Non—standard forms of work are on the rise, and come with flexible but also very often with inadequate working conditions, insufficient access to social protection, decreased coverage by social dialogue and absence of a right to collective representation. This challenges our labour laws and social protection systems and calls for a rethink of existing models to match the needs of old and new work arrangements and ensure decent working conditions, inclusion and high level of social protection. The digitalisation is changing notions of work of employer—employee relationships and of workplaces and it is absolutely indispensable that we create some clarity in this new world of work. New technologies also blur the lines between work and private life. This creates new physical and mental health risks and, therefore, the right to disconnect has to be dealt with. The use of data in employment has led to new algorithm—based management and an increased profiling in social protection provision. These can improve productivity but also increase control on individuals and surveillance of workers’ performance. It raises questions of protection of personal data; we should pay attention to this in the context of the regulation of artificial intelligence. We need accessible and interoperable digital technologies in order to exploit the potential of digitalisation to increase the autonomy of persons with disabilities and to boost their participation in society and the economy. The digital transformation must also be an opportunity in the context of the demographic challenges we face in particular in relation to our aging population and the existing rural and remote areas. We also should devote special attention to the gender gap that exists in the digital world. Europe has to be a competitive and innovative player in the digital economy. New initiatives on the Digital Services Act and artificial intelligence will play a key role, while also addressing risks of bias and discrimination. On 22 September I’m organising together with Executive Vice—President Vestager, a summit on platform work where we discuss how to improve working and social conditions on online platforms. Beyond this, we have launched the process leading to an action plan on the European Pillar of Social Rights, because the principles of the pillar should also apply fully to the new digital world of work. The pillar frames our social strategy to make sure that the transition towards a digital and climate—neutral society is socially fair and sustainable.