Digitalisation without social dialogue in France: the ambivalent effects on the job quality of public services workers

This Research Paper presents the French case study of the European Commission-funded ‘DIGIQU@LPUB’ project examining the impact of digitalisation on job quality and social dialogue in three areas of public services: electricity, public administration and healthcare. Digitalisation is being driven in three different ways: decentralised initiatives in hospitals, a national strategy in administration, smart metering in electricity. Yet in none of these sectors is digitalisation a significant social dialogue topic, despite it having – alongside some improvements in job content – many negative effects like adding new tasks to existing jobs and increasing workloads.