The Luxembourger 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 Labor in functions, 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.
Where 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 who are misclassified. They are considered self-employed, but this means that they have no rights, no minimum wage or 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 whoever works for the platform who has to prove that he is an employee, but rather we have reversed the burden of proof. Now it is presumed that he is an employed worker and the company must prove otherwise. In this way the weakest part is protected. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be self-employed people, but that there shouldn’t be false self-employed people. The other aspect is that the algorithms have to be transparent. And if these measure work performance – for example, whether or not the worker has provided a certain service –, he can always have the possibility of interacting with a human being. Because the algorithm cannot write a termination letter and the employee 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 say that European companies have difficulty finding workers with the right skills. Because?
We are in the middle of a change in organizations: decarbonized economy, digitalization. And for that, 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. Hence, this Commission is committed to training programs inspired by the numerical transition and the green transition. Even for those who have a job that is being transformed 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 still has a high level of unemployment, especially youth unemployment, although it has improved. You still have to fix certain imbalances. 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. This is not an option. Because the economy grows thanks to high productivity, something that you will never achieve with low salaries, but rather by investing in technology and people. This is what creates quality jobs. Therefore, it is now necessary for Spain to bet on sectors with high added value, which also lead to improved salaries. And how do you achieve that? Once again, improving knowledge. It is necessary to modernize the industry, this will lead to more stable and less precarious employment contracts. This is also a social need.
In what sense?
Demographic. Europe is aging. Some families give up having children due to precariousness or lack of help, especially for the reconciliation of mothers and the impossibility of accessing decent housing. I think this is a challenge, especially for societies like Spain. Therefore, we must raise the economy one step.
In other words, to create employment it is more useful to train rather than introduce elements of flexibility, as has been argued in recent years?
The dogma said that with more flexibility you would have more jobs. They told us that we had to look at 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 a certain level of flexibility. But the best guarantee of creating jobs is to help the worker. If he loses his job because his job 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 country in Europe with the largest number of overqualified workers. What needs to be said to this group?
It is a structural problem. We must tell them that they do have skills, but that they do not correspond to today’s needs, so new knowledge must be built on top of this base. That is, an update. Starting from the principle that the alternative does not have to be having fewer skills.
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 they have raised it several times in the last legislature. It’s chaos, isn’t it?
We cannot establish a single minimum wage for Europe. How to unify Bulgaria and Luxembourg? We chose to recommend some criteria, such as it being equivalent to 60% of the average salary, for example. I had an interesting debate about it with David Card.
The Nobel Prize-winning academic 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 will have negative consequences on employment. Nor should we lose sight of the best option to create decent jobs and reduce poverty, which is collective bargaining, as the cases of Austria and Sweden demonstrate.
Will artificial intelligence take away our jobs?
It’s sure to have an impact. But it will not end employment or cause us to move towards a society in which work does not exist. Furthermore, we have a historically very low unemployment rate in the EU and a more digitalized society. It is the demonstration that both things are possible.
