24/11/2025
On the 8th of October, Lorcan Kelly – researcher at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) – presented the TRAILS paper “When Jobs Change: Skills Mismatch and the Value of Training” at the Network of European Labour Market Institutes (ELMI) Conference “Jobs, Skills, and Productivity in Structural Transformation” in Warsaw.
Hosted by the Institute for Structural Research (Instytut Badań Strukturalnych), the conference took place over two days, and brought together researchers from across Europe to discuss structural transformations in the European labour market. Anna Salomons (Utrecht University, Tilburg University) and Michel Serafinelli (King’s College London) both gave keynote speeches.
The TRAILS paper, authored by Lorcan Kelly, Paul Redmond (ESRI) and Luke Brosnan (ESRI), leveraged data comprising of millions of online job advertisements to examine jobs in which skill requirements have changed rapidly in recent years. By linking the job advertisements to survey data, the authors examined whether employees in fast-changing jobs were more likely to experience skills mismatch, and if training played a role in protecting workers from this phenomenon.
Lorcan’s presentation sparked a vibrant, nuanced discussion on the continuing transformation of the EU labour market, digitalisation and the use of job vacancy data in economic research.
After presenting in Warsaw, Lorcan was invited by fellow participants to present TRAILS’ work at a conference in Maastricht on the 13th and 14th of November. Hosted by The Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA), the conference was the final event for the Horizon Europe project Skills2Capabilities – a project dedicated to examining the adaptation of skills systems to changes in the labour market.
Lorcan discussed TRAILS research with conference attendees from both research and policy backgrounds at a busy poster session, sharing ideas on the nature of labour demand, future research and how education and training policy can meaningfully support learners in the face of rapidly-evolving labour markets. Conference attendees showed a keen interest in the TRAILS work, and many potential future research avenues and collaborations were discussed. Aside from the poster session, Sandra McNally (University of Surrey) and Stephanie Matseleng Allais (University of Witwatersrand) both gave keynote speeches, and a policy panel took place with Hubert Ertl (BIBB), Glenda Quintini (OECD), Kirak Ryu (Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training), Inga Balnanosiene (Lithuanian Public Employment Service) and Emilio Dogliani (EfVET).
This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101132673
