The shortage of a (highly) skilled workforce in many sectors, the increasing aging of the population, rapid technological changes and digitalization are transforming the nature of work. Technological change due to increasing digitalization, increasing complexity due to the affluence of information, changed customer behavior due to rising expectations, high competitive intensity due to disruption, declining productivity due to excessive bureaucracy, a threat to performance due to a lack of skilled workers, more individualization due to increased self-confidenceâthese are just a few examples of drivers transforming the world of work. These shifts are challenging the whole labor market. Enterprises, organizations, workers, regional and national labor markets are in a global competition for (highly) qualified and specialized workers.
For some years now, the lack of (highly) qualified personnel has dominated newspapers: companies complain about lost revenues, want to increase their number of employees or have recruiting problems. It is now a generalized opinion that location and production factors are crucial for workers. The attractiveness of cities, regions or countries is an important driver but is creating inequalities at the regional, individual and global levels as well as between urban and rural areas. The flexibility of an internationally mobile workforce and the increasing speed at which skill requirements are changing produce disparities at the spatial, social and economic levels. Workers are also under pressure to perform and adapt to the requirements of the market and are often over- or underqualified.
Changes in the future of work are affecting both developed and less-developed economies. One of the biggest concerns is related to âtalentsâ or âhigh-skilled workers.â There is no common definition of who these talents are, but in general, these people seem to be the central actors of future economies and the future of work, as their innovation and creativity are considered the key drivers for economic development and growth. Companies, regions and nations are in a global competition for these talents. It seems that a high proportion of these highly qualified and highly creative people make a significant contribution not only to economic growth but also to the competitiveness and innovative ability of a location. The global competition for the best is continuously increasing, particularly in specific sectors. If a certain job, company, region or country is not attractive, many qualified workers can opt for more attractive alternative offers elsewhere, creating disparities between regions. This flexibility of an internationally mobile, highly skilled workforce and rapidly changing skill requirements challenge âcompetingâ countries and companies to continuously rethink and adapt their strategies and offers in order to increase their ability to attract and retain highly skilled workers.
In 1998, Mc. Kinsey & Company launched the so-called war for talent publishing a report concluding that the most important resource of the future would be globally dynamic and flexible âtalentsâ with technological literacy. The whole discourse following Mellanderâs and Floridaâs (2011, 2012) concept of âthe rise of talentsâ made companies, regions and governments aware of the need to gather talents, but inequalities are widening because of the creation of a new elite of talents, who tend to cluster together (for instance, in urban areas). Moreover, the balance of power has shifted from the companies to workers (Economist, 2006). Global demographic and economic trends along with greater mobility, the brain drain and a knowledge-driven transformation of enterprises are factors causing the battle of talents. Additionally, diversity in terms of culture, gender and working generation is increasing, causing a new order of work (Beechler & Woodward, 2009). The most competitive economies and enterprises will be those attracting talent in a global labor market and these international exchanges will need governments to invest in education and human capital (Douglass & Edelstein, 2009).
However, the driving forces and processes behind this race to attract talents are global trends and megatrends shaping the future. For this reason, in order to understand changing labor markets, global processes and developments should be taken into consideration from an interdisciplinary perspective. What ongoing developments are influencing the future of work for highly skilled workers? What are the social, economic and political implications of these developments? Who are the talents of tomorrow? Which regions or cities are the most attractive? What does that mean on a global level and at a more regional level for Europe? In order to answer these questions, our book offers insights from an interdisciplinary research project carried out with the aim of bringing together regional problems and global challenges using a mixed-method approach.
1.1 Definitions and Structure of the Book
The term âtalentâ has many different meanings in the literature. Some definitions are based on the educational level, others on skills and many more combine different qualifications and abilities. For instance, according to McKinsey talent refers to âthe best and the brightestâ and it is âthe sum of a personâs abilities, his or her intrinsic gifts, skills, knowledge, experience, intelligence, judgment, attitude, character, and drives. It also includes his or her ability to learn and growâ (Michaels, Handfield-Jones, & Axelrod, 2001, p. xii). In this definition, the level of education does not play an explicit role, whereas Florida describes talent as the creative class, creative professionals and âindividuals with high human capital, measured as the percentage of the population with a bachelorâs degree and aboveâ (2002, p. 1). On the individual level, talents could be people who âregularly demonstrate exceptional abilityâand achievementâ (Williams, 2000, p. 35) and thus make an essential contribution to ensure the competitiveness and thus the future of a company. There are many other similar approaches, and in brief, it can be asserted that the so-called talents possess specific knowledge and qualifications, together with social and methodological competences and skills. Thus, talents can be very diverse, and in this book, we use the terms highly skilled, high-skilled, highly qualified and high-qualified as synonyms for talents.
Part I of the book (Chaps. 2, 3, 4 and 5) will give an overview of the main trends shaping the future of work, while Part II (Chaps. 6 and 7) will focus on Europe and its regions. Both parts of the book are enriched by insights and statements from interviews with experts, a Delphi study and other results from research in the year 2018. Chapter 2 focuses on two main megatrends shaping the future of workâtechnology and demographic changeâand shows how new technologies and, in particular, digitization will introduce new tasks and new ways of thinking to the world of work. The aging and shrinking of industrialized societies as along with migration and feminization are also important elements changing the future of work. Chapter 3 illustrates how growing skills shortages are generating political and socio-economic tension. Even though research shows that there are different levels of skills mismatch, the knowledge economy pressures toward an âacademicizationâ of society, with different implications in terms of social inequalities. Chapter 4 focuses on the challenges that high-skilled workers will face in terms of organization of work and life and how a work-life balance is key for them. Their focus is not only on how well jobs are paid but also on the flexibility and democracy of organizations. Chapter 5 shows the importance of location factors and which factors are important for regions and nations to retain and attract the highly skilled, also showing disparities between urban and rural areas. Chapter 6 introduces Part II of the book where we change from a global to a more regional perspective. Moreover, this section presents the European Regionâs ...
