Today, artificial intelligence is no longer a distant prospect for labor markets; it is already reshaping how goods are made, how work is organized, and how skills retain their value. For China and Europe, two of the world’s most significant manufacturing and innovation ecosystems, this is not the moment to compete over who adopts AI faster. It is a moment to ask a more strategic question: How do we make sure AI adoption strengthens, rather than fragments, the workforce that makes our economies run? As President of the World Employment Confederation, representing the global private employment services industry, and as Chair of the OECD Business and Industry Advisory Committee’s Employment Committee, I see the China-Europe relationship as one of the most consequential testing grounds for getting this right.
Pairing Tech Innovation with Talent Investment
AI-driven upgrades in the chemical, automotive, and machinery sectors are not simply replacing tasks; they are recombining them. A technician on an automotive line increasingly needs to interpret data from predictive-maintenance systems, while a chemicals operator needs to understand how AI-assisted process controls change safety and quality checks. This is a workforce transformation as much as a technology transformation, and the two cannot be sequenced in succession. Companies that invest in AI systems without investing in the people who will operate alongside them, end up with expensive technology and an unprepared workforce, a combination that erodes rather than builds competitiveness.
Chinese and European companies each bring something to this challenge. China’s manufacturing base has demonstrated real speed in scaling AI-enabled production and vocational retraining at an industrial scale. Meanwhile, European companies, many operating under strong social dialogue traditions and structured apprenticeship systems, bring depth in codifying new competencies into recognized qualifications and in negotiating change with workforce representatives, rather than around them. A genuinely competitive and inclusive cooperation model would combine China’s pace of deployment with Europe’s institutional muscle for translating new skills into durable, portable qualifications, including through joint pilot programs on cross-border mobility for technical talent in shared industrial sectors, such as automotive and advanced manufacturing.
What China and Europe can Learn from Each Other
World Employment Confederation (WEC) member the Adecco Group’s Business Leaders Survey: Insights into Leading the AI Era in the China Market, found what many observers have suspected: most companies are moving ahead with AI transformation without building out the employee support programs like reskilling pathways and changing communication and psychological support, which makes transformation sustainable rather than disruptive. This is not unique to China, as it is a pattern I see across markets, and it is precisely why WEC has consistently argued for a human-centered approach to AI adoption, one where investment in people is treated as core to the business case, not an afterthought to it.
What can each side learn? Chinese companies have shown an impressive capacity to move fast on internal reskilling infrastructure, building large-scale digital learning platforms and tying them closely to production needs. European companies, by contrast, often have more mature mechanisms for embedding the workers’ voice into the transformation process itself, whether through work councils, sectoral social dialogue, or collective agreements that explicitly address technological change. Neither model is complete on its own. Deeper cooperation could take the form of joint research on AI’s labor market effects, building on the kind of data-driven analysis in the Adecco Group survey, as well as structured exchanges between Chinese and European HR and workforce development leaders, and pilot partnerships between employment services providers on both sides to test upskilling pathways that could eventually scale.
From Cooperation to Structural Change
Beyond company-level practice, there is a structural opportunity. As AI reshapes what a “job” looks like, cross-border talent mobility and mutual recognition of vocational skills standards become more urgent. One machine-learning-literate quality engineer trained in Shenzhen and one trained in Stuttgart may increasingly hold comparable competencies, even when their formal qualifications look different on paper. Building frameworks, even modest, sector-specific ones, starting with automotive, chemicals, or advanced machinery, that allow employers and workers on both sides to trust each other’s skills credentials, would meaningfully expand the talent pool available to support AI-driven industrial upgrading in both regions.
This is where platforms like the China-Europe Talent Forum have real value to add. Structural change of this kind rarely starts with formal treaties. It starts with sustained, practical dialogue between employers, employment services providers, policymakers, and social partners, who can identify where mutual recognition would have real economic effect and where it would simply create paperwork. The Forum serves as exactly that kind of convening space, and as a global leader in HR services, the Adecco Group is keen to share the practical experience we have accumulated across different markets and to collaborate with stakeholders in exploring more effective approaches to reskilling, workforce redeployment, and cross-border talent matching.
While AI will not wait for our institutions to catch up, China and Europe have an opportunity, through platforms like the Forum, to make sure our institutions and our people are not simply catching up to AI, but shaping how it is put to work. 
BETTINA SCHALLER is president of World Employment Confederation, global head of Public Affairs of the Adecco Group, and honorary dean of Beijing Institute of Talent Development Strategy.
