Quality Jobs Roadmap: ambition must be balanced with competitiveness

Brussels - EuroCommerce acknowledges the European Commission’s Quality Jobs Roadmap, but urges caution. With competitiveness a top priority, the retail and wholesale sector calls for balance, not more complexity. EuroCommerce says the focus should remain on better enforcement, dialogue and capacity building.

Christel Delberghe, EuroCommerce Director General, stated: “The EU already offers high worker protection and rights. The Roadmap rightly highlights enforcement, information and consultation and improving social dialogue as key. Looking ahead, we need to demystify AI, raise awareness of workers’ rights and promote strong social dialogue to help workers navigate the changes on the horizon and achieve the work-life balance that we value in the EU.”

The Commission’s Roadmap outlines a series of actions and will lead to the Quality Jobs Act, a new law to safeguard workers’ rights amid technological, economic and societal change.

In 2022, EuroCommerce and McKinsey estimated that retailers and wholesalers must invest up to €600 billion by 2030 to remain competitive in the digital, sustainability and talent transformation. Investment, regulatory simplification and innovation remain critical as retail and wholesale is under competitive pressure from the growth of unfair competition from non-EU platforms, trade tariffs and the costs of compliance.

As the largest private employer in the EU, retail and wholesale provides jobs to 26 million people. To maintain these jobs, actions must not be at the expense of business growth and efficiencies. Initiatives on algorithmic management need full impact assessment, as a maze of new laws risks deterring investments in improvements for their workforce, and will widen Europe’s productivity gap with the US and other global competitors.

European retailers and wholesalers are inherently based and remain in Europe, present in urban and rural areas, and the sector needs to remain dynamic and attractive. ‘Sectors like retail and wholesale bring opportunities to the labour market; primarily as a place for first jobs and for career progression. This requires simple legislation and flexibility to meet the changing and evolving expectations of the workforce and consumers’, concluded Delberghe.