Expected long-term labour market resilience and the European Union’s perceived role — results of an online Policy Delphi

Abstract

The 2008 crisis highlighted how fragile the labour markets of the European Union’s member states were, while it also directed attention to the eventual further deepening of integration as a potential solution. Nevertheless, employment and labour market policy competences are still on the national level with relatively low EU intervention. In a recent study, we explored the role of the EU in facilitating potential policy solutions with regards to labour market resilience until 2030. The study focused on labour market experts’ opinion, coming from different European countries; and took form of an online Policy Delphi Survey combined with backcasting to predict the importance and feasibility of policies concerning future challenges. The most important policies considered to be best suited to deal with the main challenges of the labour market in the EU until 2030 are education, investment in human and social capital and improvement of social policies and protection, including migration policy. The research revealed a systematic gap between the importance and feasibility of relevant solutions.