A labour market on fire

The labour market is of paramount importance to all of us – companies, citizens and government. Businesses flourish because they have employees with the right skills in-house. For these employees, having work not only means acquiring purchasing power, but also contributing to society and giving meaning to life. Finally, it is necessary to have more people working in order to ensure that social security and pensions can be paid for.

Today, however, our labour market is on fire. We are faced with a sky-high job vacancy rate, a mismatch between quantity and quality, and the economic consequences of the transitions in technology, data & digitalisation, and energy. Existing jobs are disappearing, while new ones are taking their place, which means that training and lifelong learning are a critical key to a future-proof labour market and competitiveness policy.

To achieve a future-proof labour market policy, policymakers must work in concert towards an employment rate where 80% of the working population work and stay working longer. We urgently need clear performance indicators for a true policy focused on putting people to work. We must have the courage to talk about the finite and degressive nature of unemployment benefits. More generally, the large group of long-term sick and non-working people must find their way back to the labour market. We must also remove the barriers that make it difficult for those outside the labour market to find work, such as redundancy legislation, rigid protections, rising wage costs, the small gap between unemployment and work, and so on.