Active employment policies and their necessary new dimension: a note on the new aspect of the right-duty to employability

Abstract

The current labour market, characterised by strong digitalisation and constant evolution, has brought with it, among other elements, new forms of work and demanding and agile training needs to adapt to the rapid changes brought about by the 4.0 revolution. Active employment policies are an area that, like all labour market policies, must adapt to the singularities of this new labour reality. Employability, an element renewed and strengthened by the recent Employment Act 3/2023 of 28 February, is a key element in adapting to the changes we are already experiencing and which will be a constant in the coming years. For this reason, this paper analyses the need to provide elements of rootedness and strengthening of this employability from the space of coordination between public-private institutions, social agents and the subjects concerned. The new dimension of the right-duty to employability, correctly applied, opens up an opportunity to achieve a real application of this advantage for our productive system, which is highly digitalised in terms of machines and robots, but much less so in terms of delegation and autonomy of workers. It is thus a question of reflecting on a core element - employability - and its connection with the labor market and productivity, within the broad field of active employment policies.