Do Global Value Chains and new technologies improve job quality in Europe?

Two powerful forces are reshaping work in Europe: cross-border production integration within Global Value Chains (GVCs), and rapid digitalisation through robots, computerization, and artificial intelligence (AI). But do these forces harm or improve wages and job quality for European workers? Drawing on micro-level data from 22 European countries, our research answers this question by looking beyond wages to measure multiple dimensions of job quality.

Global Value Chains (GVCs) describe how production today is spread across borders. Few products are made entirely in one country: a smartphone assembled in Hungary may include microchips from Taiwan, China, batteries from South Korea, and design components from the United States. When these foreign inputs are combined into a final export, they show how strongly an economy — and the jobs within it — are embedded in international production networks.

Technological exposure refers to how closely different occupations are linked to digital tools such as robots, software, or artificial intelligence (AI). For example, machine operators are often using (or can even be replaced by) robots, IT specialists use software, and data analysts rely on AI. By contrast, many service jobs or manual trades remain less tied to digital technologies.

Our results show a clear pattern: deeper involvement in GVCs tends to weakly reduce wages, but at the same time, production fragmentation can improve other aspect of job quality — such as opportunities for skill development, the level of autonomy and decision-making discretion, and the overall workplace environment.

Technology, however, does not fundamentally change this relationship. Occupations more exposed to robots and software show only marginal differences in job quality. In AI-intensive jobs (e.g. clinical laboratory technicians, chemical engineers, optometrists), the link between GVCs and working conditions is mostly insignificant. In other words, digitalisation does not appear to offset the wage pressures associated with globalisation.

Our findings highlight strong variation across countries and occupations.

• Job quality differs widely between and within European countries.
• High-skilled workers often benefit in terms of career prospects and autonomy, while machine operators and low-skilled workers report worse conditions.
• Wages are consistently lower when GVC participation deepens. AI-exposed jobs start with higher baseline wages, but their job quality does not improve with stronger GVC ties.
• Our multidimensional approach shows that wages alone cannot capture the full picture of job quality — factors like work intensity, job security, and social support also matter.

Our study challenges the notion that European integration into global production or rapid adoption of AI will automatically upgrade working conditions. Instead, it shows that while GVCs may bring some modest improvements in non-wage aspects, they also create downward pressure on wages. This points to the need for policies that address not just pay, but also psychosocial risks, “technostress,” and work–life balance. These issues are central to the EU’s 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goal 8 on decent work and economic growth.

The main takeaway is that GVCs remain a double-edged sword for European workers — reducing wages while only slightly improving some aspects of job quality. Technologies like AI, robots, and software are not yet transforming this balance in a meaningful way. As Europe moves into a post-pandemic world and faces the rapid rise of generative AI, new research will be needed to understand how these forces together shape the future of decent work.