Changing the way we think about work

Marianne Thyssen, European Commissioner, Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility

“Well I think one of the difficulties will be skills development and also to adapt our social systems – because we have let me say – we have a clear view of where people belong to. I am an employer and worker – I am an employer, I am self employed. We know where we are and where we belong to. But we have new kinds of work and we have to define them, to give them a place in our social protection system, our economic system and we have to do that and this is the big challenge. We have to embrace the opportunities of this new world of work. We are not going to kill them but at the same time we have to see that nobody falls between two seats. Nobody is left behind. We have to see that everybody is protected. That they have social security systems, that they have the chance to be skilled and to skill up – This will ask, reorganisations of the structures in the member states and we can help in that from Europe to by together formulating recommendations, benchmarks, common goals, learn from each other and we can support it with the money in the European Social fund we have from the European side.”