UNIverse - Public Research Portal
Project cover

The Swiss labour market in the digital transformation (SWISSLAB)

Research Project
 | 
01.05.2020
 - 30.04.2024

The digital transformation causes substantial shifts in the tasks associated with specific jobs and the skills and competencies demanded by employers. The extent of possible disparities this will create on the labour market will crucially depend on how labour supply responds to these developments. Moreover, digitalisation disrupts entire management systems, creating both new opportunities, and challenges for the formation and design of employment relationships. In SWISSLAB, we investigate how the digital transformation changes employment relationships and the matching of labour supply and demand in Switzerland. The first step is to investigate how digitalisation changes job-specific tasks and the skills and competencies demanded by employers. This information will serve as input for studying how firms and workers respond to these changes. On the labour demand side, we analyse the policies firms take to accommodate their changing needs and the challenges created by digitalisation. Here, we study two dimensions of potential adjustments to the digital transformation. Firstly, we examine how firms adjust their labour demand in response to the implementation of digital technologies. Secondly, we explore how digitalisation affects employment relationships between firms and their employees. Specifically, we investigate how firms respond to digitalisation in terms of the composition of their workforce, their human resource management system (including hiring and training practices as well as pay for performance plans), and their work organisation (including the allocation of working tasks, decision-making authorities as well as cooperation requirements among co-workers). We also examine the impact of the use of digital technologies on firm and employee outcomes, such as firm performance, worker motivation and well-being. In this context, we additionally study how the different adjustment channels through which firms cope with digitalisation affect workers, firms and their outcomes. On the labour supply side, we study three dimensions of possible adjustments to the digital transformation. Firstly, we investigate how workers employed by Swiss firms adapt to changing requirements in their jobs, especially in terms of investments in new skills. Secondly, we study whether unemployed workers adjust their job search strategies towards the types of jobs with increasing demand and whether counselling services or participation in job search assistance and training programs help in the adjustment process. Thirdly, we study new labour market entrants. They play a particularly important role when labour demand changes substantially because they can tailor their educational and occupational choices to these changes. University graduates are of particular interest in this context, because it is very difficult for firms to influence students' choices compared to, e.g. apprenticeships. We analyse if and how students' choices respond to the changing needs of the labour market in terms of their educational and occupational choices, and how this affects their labour market outcomes after graduation. Moreover, we investigate how adjustments in the courses and study programs offered by universities can help to better prepare students for the changing needs of the labour market.

Funding

The Swiss labour market in the digital transformation (SWISSLAB)

SNF Projekt (GrantsTool), 05.2020-04.2024 (48)
PI : Wunsch, Conny.
CI : Beckmann, Michael.

Members (5)

Profile Photo

Conny Wunsch

Principal Investigator
Profile Photo

Michael Beckmann

Co-Investigator
Profile Photo

Renate Strobl

Project Member
MALE avatar

Lucas Nikolaus Daniel Trutwin

Project Member
MALE avatar

Nina Drollmann

Project Member