Building Europe a more resilient workforce, one policy at a time
What kind of society do we want? This is the question that inspired the launch of the EU-funded FutuRes(opens in new window) project. Since 2023, it has been taking action to connect leading European demographers and economists with policy experts. The aim is to provide a platform for them to explore the role that resilience can play in a rapidly changing technological landscape affecting not only Europe’s labour markets but also its citizens’ well-being.
Protecting future jobs
One of the project’s most recent events bringing together scientists and policymakers to discuss societies’ big issues was an international meeting hosted by FutuRes together with Population Europe, a collaborative network of Europe’s leading demographic research centres. Held on 11 March 2025, the online meeting was attended by over 200 participants from policy, research, global organisations, civil society and business. The event’s focus was how Europe, when faced with an ageing population and a labour market changed by robotic technology, can ensure it has enough essential workers in the coming decades. “People will have to work longer,” was the sobering answer provided by Arnstein Aassve, crisis resilience expert and professor of demography at FutuRes project coordinator Bocconi University, Italy, as reported in a recent news item(opens in new window) on the event. “This is a given, however, it begs the question: what makes working longer easier?” Jakub Bijak, a statistical modelling expert and professor at project partner University of Southampton, United Kingdom, spoke about one of the building blocks needed to make this possible. “Job automation will make some people on the labour market vulnerable. It is however possible to invest in making automation work in our favour,” he noted, explaining that proactive steps need to be taken to prepare for the coming changes. According to Bijak, automation needs to be exploited to include and keep people in the labour market longer, and policy should focus on “upskilling and education, lest we risk losing our competitiveness.” Other experts discussed the value of resilience in areas outside the labour market, such as in families, and the importance of pension reforms that promote equality between socio-economic groups while also being economically sustainable. Keynote speaker Pearl Dykstra, former advisor to the European Commission, spoke about how policy experts participating in FutuRes Policy Lab meetings over the past 2 years are concerned about their ideas and plans being hindered by two trends. “One is a political stalemate, as more and more European countries are struggling with stable government formation. The other is the current possibility of a security and economic recession, which has brought the spirit of austerity back to Europe.”
Robots in the workplace
Another recent FutuRes (Towards a Resilient Future of Europe) event on building a more resilient future for Europe was the talk(opens in new window) titled ‘How Will Robots Change my Job? Automation and Policies of Resilience’. Part of FutuRes Policy Lab’s ‘In Touch with Tomorrow’ talk series, the event was held on 1 April and focused on automation’s impact on jobs, the types of challenges faced by different countries and the policy measures that make the most sense for them. For more information, please see: FutuRes project website(opens in new window)
Keywords
FutuRes, policy, resilience, labour market, job, automation, robot
