EU: annual Employment and Social Developments in Europe (ESDE) review focuses on both digitalization and automation

On 13 July, the European Commission published the 2018 edition of its yearly Employment and Social Developments in Europe (ESDE) review that reports significant progress in terms of meeting the challenges of digitalization and automation. Although the report contains nothing ground-breaking as regards the jobs destruction-creation balance, it does however provide a comprehensive review of the research available on the topic and underlines the need for Europe to develop innovation so as to ensure machines do not replace humans and to support change by way of social dialogue and protection.
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EU employment data have never been as good with approximately 238 million currently in work. Poverty levels are also falling with the report noting, ‘Severe material deprivation declined in almost all Member States, falling to an all-time low of 33.4 million in 2017 (roughly 16.1 million fewer than the peak of 49.5 million in 2012).’ The current question outstanding is how to avoid digital transformation and automation negatively impacting Europe’s citizens? In its 2018 yearly Employment and So

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