Skills Transition within the Reconfiguration of the Automotive Industry: Between Anticipation and Reality

The accelerated shift to electric vehicle (EV) production is expected to have major implications for labour in the European automotive industry, a sector that provides mass employment and relatively high wages for manual workers. While many predict significant redundancies driven by technological displacement, skills obsolescence, and simplified production processes, other studies suggest that EV production may in fact be more labour-intensive. This paper critically examines the anticipated skills mismatch resulting from the dual shift towards digitalisation and electrification, focusing on the automotive supply chain in Italy and Poland.

Our article draws upon Iskander’s (2021) reflections on the concept of skill and the power structures it reflects. The way in which skills are valued has consequences for workers inside and outside the workplace, but it also affects workers’ organising, by creating distinctions that add to other social categorisations. Braverman (1974) argued that skill is a medium by which power, control and exploitation are both enacted and contested. Employers deploy the skill narrative to create the notion of ‘worker deficit’, thereby steering learning activities towards objectives contrary to workers’ interest - intensifying their control and exploitation (Sawchuk 2008). Conversely, workers and labour movements advocate for skill training to gain greater control over the production process, thus increasing their power against employers.

Drawing on ongoing qualitative research conducted in Italy and Poland from 2023 to 2024, this paper examines how the power dynamics surrounding skills are being mobilised in the current automotive transition. Based on 65 in-depth semi-structured interviews with a diverse range of participants – including employers, trade unionist, workers and key informants – we explore their narratives on skills as well as workers’ practical experiences of past and present industry transformations and the implications for workers’ leverage in the sector.