The Luxembourgish Nicolas Schmit, European Commissioner for Labor and Social Rights, was in Barcelona last week, within the framework of the Spanish presidency of the EU, to participate in a conference on active employment policies together with the Vice-President and Minister of Acting job, Yolanda Díaz. In this interview, he explains how to improve the European labor market and the pending challenges in Spain after the reforms of recent years.
At what point is the European directive on riders and other platform workers?
It has entered the last phase. Let me say that we see a little bit across Europe that there are millions of workers on the platforms that are misclassified. They are considered self-employed, but that means they have no rights, no minimum wage, and no social protection. For its part, the company maintains that it does nothing, that it is only an intermediary.
And what are they, then?
We are based on two principles. It is not the person who works for the platform who has to prove that they are an employee, but we have reversed the burden of proof. Now it is assumed that he is an employee and the company will have to prove otherwise. In this way, the weakest part is protected. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be freelancers, but that there shouldn't be fake freelancers. The other aspect is that the algorithms must be transparent. And if the latter measure the performance of the job, for example, whether or not the worker has provided a certain service, that they can always have the possibility of interacting with a human being. Because the algorithm cannot write a letter of dismissal and the worker has the right to know. Now it is up to the Spanish presidency to identify a basis for a compromise agreement between the interests of companies and innovation and the protection of workers.
Statistics show that European companies are struggling to find workers with the right skills. Because?
We are in the midst of a change in organizations: decarbonized economy, digitization. And that's why specific skills are needed. But companies also need less qualified people in the service sector. So, for one reason or another, there are always citizens who are outside the labor market. The problem is that we find workers who do not have the skills required by the market. This is why this Commission is betting on training programs inspired by the digital transition and the green transition. Even for those who have an occupation that is transforming or a job that will disappear. In practice this means retraining. Or train better.
How do you see the Spanish labor market?
Spain came from a very difficult situation. It continues to have a high level of unemployment, especially among youth, although it has improved. He still has to fix certain mismatches. The country experienced a boom before the financial crisis, based on two pillars, tourism and construction. This increased employment, but through a low-wage model. The latter is not an option. Because the economy grows thanks to high productivity, something you will never achieve with low wages, but by investing in technology and people. This is what creates quality jobs. For this reason, it is now necessary for Spain to invest in sectors with high added value, which, in addition, lead to an improvement in salaries. And how is this achieved? Once again, improving knowledge. The industry needs to be modernized, this will lead to more stable and less precarious employment contracts. This is also a social need.
In what sense?
demographic Europe is ageing. Some families give up having children due to precariousness or the lack of aid, especially for the reconciliation of mothers and the impossibility of access to decent housing. I think it is a challenge, especially for societies like the Spanish one. For this reason, it is necessary to move the economy up a notch.
So that to create employment it is more useful to train instead of introducing elements of flexibility, as has been argued in recent years?
The dogma said that with more flexibility you would get more work. They told us that we needed to look towards the United States... which is a totally different model! I would say that the Spanish case has shown that this is not true. It's okay to have some level of flexibility. But the best guarantee of creating employment is to help the worker. If he loses his job because his workplace no longer exists, then we must give him the right to recover and accompany him to become competitive again and thus provide an essential public service.
Spain is the European country with the highest number of overqualified workers. What should be said to this group?
It is a structural problem. They must be told that they do have skills, but that they do not correspond to today's needs, so new knowledge must be built on this basis. That is, an update. Based on the principle that the alternative should not be to have fewer skills either.
The Commission has drawn up a European directive on minimum wages. But there are still many differences in Europe. Some do not have it, Italy is debating it and is skeptical and in Spain it has been raised several times in the last legislature. It's chaos, isn't it?
We cannot set a single minimum wage for Europe. How would we make Bulgaria and Luxembourg uniform? We choose to recommend some criteria, such as equivalent to 60% of the average salary, for example. I had an interesting debate about this with David Card.
The academic Nobel Prize in Economics?
Yes, he confirmed to me that it is not at all clear, according to his research, that the introduction of a minimum wage has negative consequences on employment. Nor should we lose sight of the best option for creating decent jobs and reducing poverty, which is collective bargaining, as demonstrated by the cases of Austria and Sweden.
Will artificial intelligence take our jobs?
It will definitely have an impact. But it will not eliminate employment or make us move towards a society in which there is no work. In addition, in the EU we have a historically very low unemployment rate and a more digitized society. It is the demonstration, then, that both things are possible.
