The discourse surrounding the future of work in Europe has a new landmark with the release of Cedefop’s latest working paper, “Human-centred digital transitions and skill mismatches in European workplaces” [1]. Drawing on the comprehensive second European Skills and Jobs Survey (ESJS2), the report offers a data-rich, panoramic view of a continent grappling with the accelerating pace of digitalisation. It is an essential read for any educator, trainer, or policymaker. However, a critical analysis reveals that while the report provides invaluable data, its underlying framework and the very language of a “human-centred” transition warrant a deeper, more questioning look.

The Cedefop report paints a complex and often contradictory picture. On one hand, it documents a significant increase in the demand for training as a direct consequence of accelerated digitalisation, a trend supercharged by the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis in the report’s first chapter suggests that workers affected by rapid technological change are substantially more likely to seek out both general and IT-specific training. Furthermore, it finds that digitalisation can reduce skill underutilisation, implying that technology can enhance the quality of employment matches rather than simply displacing workers.

On the other hand, the report does not shy away from the downsides. The same digital acceleration that drives training demand also fosters negative attitudes towards technology and exacerbates existing inequalities. The benefits of digitalisation, the report notes, are concentrated among already-advantaged workers - males, urban residents, and the highly educated - while more vulnerable groups show limited adaptive responses. The findings on age and gender segregation in digitally intensive tasks are particularly stark, revealing structural biases that training alone cannot fix. For instance, the report highlights that men are generally more likely to perform digitally intensive tasks, while older women are the most likely to be non-users, with the gender wage gap widening for the 55-65 age group.

Key Finding	Implication	Source (Chapter)
Accelerated digitalisation increases training demand	Workers recognise the need to upskill in response to technological shocks.	Chapter 1
Digitalisation reduces skill underutilisation	Technology can enhance job-skill matching rather than just causing displacement.	Chapter 1
Benefits are concentrated among advantaged groups	Digital transition is widening labour market inequalities.	Chapter 1
Organisational learning capacity reduces skill shortages	Workplace environment is crucial for skill adaptation, especially for blue-collar workers.	Chapter 2
Significant age and gender segregation in digital tasks	Structural inequalities are being replicated and amplified in the digital workplace.	Chapter 3
Teachers show high resilience and training uptake	The education sector adapted during the pandemic but may underestimate future challenges.	Chapter 10

While these findings are illuminating, the report’s central framing around “skill mismatches” deserves scrutiny. This term, while ubiquitous in policy circles, implicitly frames the problem from an employer’s perspective. It suggests a world where the primary challenge is a deficit on the part of the worker, whose skills no longer align with the needs of the market. This perspective naturally leads to a solution focused on individual upskilling and reskilling, placing the burden of continuous adaptation squarely on the shoulders of the workforce.

This perspective risks obscuring more fundamental questions. Is the issue always a lack of skills, or is it sometimes a lack of decent wages, job security, and quality working conditions for the skills that already exist? The “skills mismatch” narrative can conveniently sidestep uncomfortable conversations about job quality and employer responsibility in fostering a stable and rewarding work environment.

This brings us to the report’s use of the term “human-centred.” It is a laudable and necessary aspiration, yet the report’s own data, combined with wider research, suggests a significant gap between this rhetoric and the lived reality of many workers. The Cedefop paper itself notes that rapid digitalisation can lead to negative attitudes and performance pressures. Other research paints an even starker picture of a “crisis of dignity at work,” where the drive for digital efficiency leads to dehumanisation [2]. When employees learn of their redundancy via an automated email or a deactivated security badge, it becomes difficult to speak of a human-centred transition. As one report on the topic notes, despite massive investment in AI, many firms see no return, with “people issues” and a failure to align tools with workflows being the primary obstacles [2]. A truly human-centred approach must involve more than just equipping humans with the skills to use the new tools; it must involve designing tools and systems that genuinely augment human capability and preserve human dignity.

Nowhere is this tension more critical than in the field of education and training. The Cedefop report rightly highlights the education sector’s resilience, noting that a high percentage of teachers have undertaken training during the pandemic. However, it also cautions that they may underestimate the future impact of technology. The report’s policy lessons advocate for fostering organisational learning capacity and developing workers’ problem-solving, creativity, and agility skills, alongside managing the “psychological adaptation to technological change.”

These are sensible recommendations, but they do not go far enough. They still position education primarily as a reactive mechanism, a service provider to a technologically determined future. The challenge for educators and trainers is to move beyond this. The goal should not simply be to produce workers who are more psychologically adapted to the pressures of automation or more agile in a precarious job market. The goal must be to cultivate critical digital citizens who can not only use technology but also question it, shape it, and hold its developers and deployers accountable.

In conclusion, the Cedefop report is an important  resource, offering a detailed map of the challenges and contradictions of Europe’s digital transition. Its honest portrayal of the widening inequalities and negative impacts is commendable. However, for the transition to be genuinely human-centred, we must move beyond the limiting framework of “skill mismatches.” We must ask not only how we can prepare people for the future of work, but how we can ensure the future of work is fit for people. For the education and training community, this means fostering a new set of skills: not just digital literacy, but digital critical-mindedness, ethical awareness, and the capacity for civic engagement in the technological sphere. Only then can we ensure that the digital future is one we actively create, not one we are simply mismatched with.

References

[1] Pouliakas, K. and Santangelo, G. (eds.). (2026). Human-centred digital transitions and skill mismatches in European workplaces. Cedefop working paper series. https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/

[2] Gibson, C. B., Groves, K. S., Margolis, J., Lusk, C., & Sakamoto, K. (2025). The Crisis of Dignity at Work: Dehumanization during Digital Transformation. Academy of Management Discoveries. https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amd.2025.0359

About the Image

This image shows multiple data servers located in a beautiful landscape but emitting a dark cloud of smoke. It demonstrates the impacts of data centres on the natural world through pollution emitted from the operation of the centres. The image was inspired by my research on the environmental impacts of data centres built around the world to service the expansion of GenAI. I found the image of the landscape (Japanese) on Public Work by Cosmos and used Canva to complete the image.