The importance of digital literacy on the labour market
| Published date | 06 April 2020 |
| Date | 06 April 2020 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-07-2019-0274 |
| Pages | 921-932 |
| Author | Predrag Bejaković,Željko Mrnjavac |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
The importance of digital literacy
on the labour market
Predrag Bejakovi
c
Institute of Public Finance, Zagreb, Croatia, and
Zeljko Mrnjavac
University of Split Faculty of Economics, Split, Croatia
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between digital skills and employment and
in this way accentuate importance of policy interventions for improving digital literacy.
Design/methodology/approach –Using Eurostat data, this paper demonstrates statistically significant
correlation between digital skills and employment rates in EU.
Findings –This implies why it is so important for governments and employers to seek, propose and
implement new strategies to promote digital inclusion, literacy and the training not only for new ICT
professionals but also for the whole workforce.
Social implications –Digital skills, particularly digital literacy, are an important factor for socio-economic
development of the society and employability of the labour force. Without adequate digital literacy, it is not
possible to participate in the economy and the digital society, particularly having in mind the digital
transformation that the world of work is experiencing in the content and the organisation. Beyond the work
environment, it also affects the way people live and communicate.
Originality/value –In this paper, the importance and definition of digital literacy are elaborated, explaining
the measurement of digital literacy and skills, as well as the relation between digital literacy and employability.
Keywords Digital literacy, Digital transformation, Labour force, Employability
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Digitalisation has shown a strong impact on labour market by changing working conditions,
job dynamics and required knowledge and skills. It changes labour circumstances, creating
both opportunities and risks. While numerous studies forecast millions of new jobs to be
created, many jobs are at perils of disappearance due to digitalisation.
Digitalisation is not only the driver of economic growth but is also one of the key factors
influencing these positive changes. Most new jobs will be within skill-intensive and
knowledge-occupations, high-level managerial and technical jobs while jobs in elementary
occupations will have lower increase. Despite that millions of jobs might disappear due to
automation, primarily in skilled manual work, potentials for new jobs, skills and growth are
huge. Whether these new economic divides will be fair in the social context remains to be seen.
The impacts of digitisation on the labour market and employment are multiple and have a
high level of interconnection and mutual reinforcement. In many countries, the digitisation of
the economy causes the polarisation of the labour market. On one side, digitisation has
enabled a major increase in the demand for high-skilled persons that have cognitive and
digital skills and technical knowledge to perform successfully the various tasks and
processes required by the new technologies. On the other side, it has led to a stark decrease in
the demand for low- and medium-skilled workers (Berger and Frey, 2015). Valsamis et al.
(2015) estimate that 40–60% of the available jobs in the EU are at risk due to digitisation-
induced automation. They doubt that a digitalised economy will enable adequate demand for
labour to compensate for expected job losses. Moreover, digitisation is leading to the
Digital literacy
on the labour
market
921
JEL Classification —E24, E66, I25, J24
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 4 July 2019
Revised 25 February 2020
Accepted 10 March 2020
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 42 No. 4, 2020
pp. 921-932
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-07-2019-0274
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