Kurzbeschreibung

The Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) jointly organize the fourth international TASKS conference. The conference is concerned with the role of job tasks for labour market outcomes.Automation and digitisation technologies increasingly perform tasks that could previously only be done by humans. This development has triggered scientific and public debates on the future of work. The aim of this conference is to bring together economists and sociologists to discuss frontier research on how automation and digitisation are leading to adjustments in our labor markets and challenging the future of work. Workers’ task schedules have been adjusting to changing work environments, but this might differ between types of workers as well as change over time. Policy measures such as further education and firm-based training may help disadvantaged workers to cope with the changing work environments.
The scientific committee encourages theoretical, empirical, and policy-oriented contributions from all areas of labour economics and related fields focusing on changing skill demand, occupational mobility, trade and offshoring, the role of institutions, job polarization, education and training, human-machine interaction or measuring tasks. Sociological, pedagogical or cross-disciplinary perspectives utilizing the task framework to address issues such as unequal labour market opportunities or the role of educational or personal backgrounds for the fortunes of workers against the background of changing labour market requirements are explicitly welcome.