For a knowledge-based economy such as the Netherlands, people are the most important capital. How do our country's workforce and labour market organisations remain vital and resilient in the face of the major challenges of the 21st century? People will work longer in the future, and career switches will be much more frequent. How can new skills be acquired and learned during careers? Jobs at the bottom of the labour market are becoming increasingly unstable and insecure, the middle segment is shrinking, and at the top, more and more flexibility and adaptation is required. How can education respond to these permanent changes? How do we link vocational and general education and avoid a social divide between the low and highly educated? Craftsmanship has the connotation of craft and tradition, but what could be a modern interpretation of craftsmanship, focusing on creativity and innovation and fitting the modern economy? How do we ensure that the most vulnerable students are properly equipped for the future labour market? How is the underside of the labour market changing?
Connecting character
This question combines the changes in our society in the coming century with questions about our current education system and promoting labour participation. The structure of the labour market is expected to change fundamentally in the 21st century, due to digitalisation, but also to the flexibilisation of work and the way organisations are changing. Addressing the question requires an analysis from a socio-economic perspective, as well as knowledge of technical developments, many of which drive change in our society. The question thus requires the existence of multidisciplinary bridges between different fields of science, such as work and organisational psychology, sociology, education science, economics and technology, to gain a better fundamental understanding of the changing society in the 21st century. This creates a grip on the changing organisational forms that have emerged and will emerge, so that good education, care for the elderly, labour participation, sustainability and safety can be better secured. In all this, the relationship between people and technology plays an important role. Designing new organisational forms for work, education and society also offers.
