AI and Digitalisation’s Impact on EU’s Future Labour Market: Scenarios and Implications

Book chapter, 2025

This chapter addresses the potential impact of AI and digitalisation on EU’s future labour market. With a point of departure in the current geopolitical situation, climate change, and global unrest, we examine four alternative futures for how the EU might evolve over the coming ten years. We discuss how digital technologies and AI might support and enable these futures, and we examine the overarching implications for each alternative. We present a scenario matrix with four alternative but equally plausible future scenarios for 2035. These scenarios include Scenario 1: Race to the Bottom: China in EU’s Driver’s Seat, Scenario 2: The Wild West: EU in Total Disarray, Scenario 3: Circularity: EU as a Sustainable and Resilient Island, and Scenario 4: A Transformed World: The Sky is the Limit. While each scenario is plausible, we suggest that not all are desirable, and each scenario should be further scrutinised. Ultimately, we collectively question and discuss what future scenario EU we want to create and what this means for policy development. Accordingly, the impact AI and digitalisation have on EU's future labour market is fully dependent on which path, and which scenario, we strive for in this development.