Social and Labour Market Impacts of the Green Transition in the European Union

Absztrakt

One of the key challenges of the decarbonisation process to mitigate climate change is how to maintain labour market balance and safeguard social welfare policies during the green transition linked to digitalisation and demographic change. While many jobs in carbon-intensive sectors are being lost or transformed, there is an increasingly obvious shortage of skilled workers in green sectors. An overview of the social and labour market impacts and trends of the green transition is hampered by the fact that a generally accepted approach and conceptual framework for the concept of green jobs has not yet been developed, and its embeddedness in the labour market is assessed based on different methodological measures. Drawing on the relevant literature, surveys and databases, the paper argues that the EU’s ‘just transition’ initiative is an essential tool and precondition for the green transition, which requires both the mapping of processes that facilitate the adaptation of labour market mechanisms and the tailor-made use of surveys that underpin evidence-based approaches.