Employment and the labour market are currently facing major challenges in Europe, due to digitalization, demographic changes, and not least due to the Covid-19 pandemic. On one hand, a shortage of skilled workers threatens several fields of activity such as the care and IT sectors; on the other hand, (long-term) unemployment persists among disadvantaged social groups. Moreover, new groups of unemployed persons like entrepreneurs emerge as a result of the pandemic disproportionately affecting different economic sectors.

What are possible approaches to tackle these issues? What other challenges can we expect in the future and how can we deal with them?

With the policy and practice conference, we intend to share the experiences and learnings that we made within the framework of the SIV project to further pave the way for fostering social innovation in the field of labour market integration. Also, we wish to reflect on them with experts in the fields of labour market integration, social impact investing, policy-making and research. We will start with a look at the bigger picture of employment in the European context and explore to what extent social impact investors consider labour market issues as part of their responsibility.

https://short.wu.ac.at/interreg-siv-conference-03may22