The discussion on the challenges and opportunities for Research and Development offered by the Hydrogen economy took place on June 22nd. CoLABOR was responsible for commenting on its impact on work and employment.
The first stage in creating an industrial cluster around green industrial hydrogen constitutes a genuine industrial policy initiative, capable of mobilizing different social sectors around a national project oriented towards relevant priorities of environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, but also social sustainability, repositioning the need for the social revaluation of work and prioritizing issues of decent work and quality employment (adequately remunerated, safe and properly covered by social security).
Significant in the strategy's design is the reference to human resources as "one of the most relevant aspects in the context of the energy transition and the decarbonization of the economy," and the concern for safeguarding "a just transition and the creation of qualified and quality jobs." Revealing a qualifying intention for the productive specialization of employment is the proposal to create a "Collaborative Laboratory that will become a national and international benchmark, involving the business and industrial sectors, including European and international partnerships, focused on research and development, and that will foster the development of new industries and services, based on highly qualified human resources."
Regarding the impact of the EN-H2 on employment and job quality, we believe that quantifying the impacts and defining qualification profiles should stem from a thorough reflection on the social and economic challenges associated with this strategy. We identified five vectors of analysis: (a) identification of geostrategic and geoeconomic tensions and dynamics associated with global energy value chains, and in particular hydrogen; (b) characterization of the role of the State and its relationship with the multiple actors involved; (c) identification of failures in market provisioning regimes and complementary provisioning regimes; (d) alignment of business behavior with social needs through the design of financing instruments and conditional financial incentives; (e) assessment of the impact of technology on work and employment in the energy transition.
Given the anticipated trend towards shorter global value chains, through reduced external dependence, greater re-territorialization, and closer ties between production and consumption circuits—a trend that includes the energy value chain—employment policies must accommodate this reconfiguration of the international organization of labor. This reconfiguration should promote a more diverse and flexible productive and skills-based ecology, grounded in more plural and resilient professional training and research profiles. This is only possible with more qualified human resources and institutional arrangements that preserve the quality of employment and prioritize public policy responses that address human needs.
See here.