Wage and task profiles of employment in Europe in 2030

This short report examines the projected structural change for the wage and task structure of employment in EU Member States, up to 2030, using the framework developed in Eurofound’s European Jobs Monitor. (The report also forms a chapter in the Cedefop-Eurofound joint report Skills forecast: Trends and challenges to 2030.) The most striking finding is the projection of a more polarised labour market in the EU. This is driven mainly by the growth of jobs at the very bottom of the wage distribution. However, across the Member States, there is considerable heterogeneity in the patterns of structural change by job-wage quintile, with many Member States projected to upgrade their occupational structure towards higher paying jobs. The tendency towards an upgrading of the wage structure and the shift towards more autonomy, less routine tasks, more ICT, less physical and more social and intellectual tasks, is most prominent in the Member States that joined the European Union after 2004. This suggests an upward convergence of the employment structure in the EU.