RESKILLING reflects on future transport jobs and education programmes with Wallonian carriers
The FOREM, Wallonia’s public employment and vocational training service provider, has published a forward-looking analysis of employment trends in the transport and logistics sector in the Belgian region of Wallonia.
The study examines how structural drivers such as automation, digitalisation, and broader geopolitical and economic pressures are reshaping job profiles, skill requirements, and labour organisation across the sector.
Rather than presenting static forecasts, the analysis focuses on transition dynamics, identifying how different segments of transport and logistics employment are likely to evolve under scenarios of increasing technological integration. Particular attention is given to the impact of connected and automated mobility, shifts in supply chain organisation, and changing demand patterns linked to industrial activity and consumer behaviour.
From paper to operational reality
Following the publication, FOREM organised a series of stakeholder workshops to ground the findings in operational reality. These sessions brought together a broad range of actors from across Wallonia’s transport and logistics ecosystem, including sectoral federations representing freight and industrial supply chains, trainings' planning and development bodies, universities, and employment and skills managers from both companies and associations.
The workshop attended by POLIS on Friday, 22 May 2026, formed part of this consultation process. The session was structured around an interactive presentation of the study’s main findings, followed by a discussion on how the identified trends manifest in day-to-day operations and workforce planning. Participants were invited to reflect on the relative weight of different drivers of change, with geopolitical developments and macroeconomic conditions emerging as particularly influential in shaping employment trends, while shifts in consumer behaviour and market demand were considered less decisive by comparison within the group discussion.
A POLIS take
POLIS contributed by bringing perspectives from its network of member cities and regions actively deploying innovative public transport and mobility solutions. These included pilot projects in autonomous bus operations, robotaxi services, and emerging drone delivery applications. This input helped situate the Walloon analysis within a wider European context of mobility innovation and public sector experimentation.
The exchange also served as a platform to present and discuss findings from ongoing European cooperation projects. The WE-TRANSFORM project was highlighted for its policy recommendations on working conditions in increasingly digitalised and automated transport services, with a focus on ensuring balanced governance structures through structured social dialogue and improved institutional coordination. It also addresses skills development pathways and the responsibilities of public and private actors in ensuring that technological deployment translates into inclusive, people-centred transport systems.
In parallel, early results from the RESKILLING project were shared, particularly its work on identifying and structuring job families affected by the deployment of connected, cooperative, and automated mobility (CCAM). This includes mapping how existing roles are being redefined, split, or combined, as well as how entirely new occupational profiles are emerging in response to technological change.
Gaps and demands
A central theme emerging from the workshop was the persistent gap between labour market demand and education and training provision. Participants highlighted the difficulty of aligning rapidly evolving operational needs with curricula that are often slower to adapt. The discussion emphasised the need for stronger and more systematic collaboration between employers responsible for operational delivery and institutions responsible for education and workforce preparation.
Internships were identified as a particularly effective mechanism for strengthening this alignment, offering structured exposure to real operational environments. Alongside this, participants stressed the importance of harmonising job classifications and role definitions across companies and sub-sectors, in order to improve comparability and facilitate more coherent training pathways.
Rather than concluding with fixed policy prescriptions, the workshop was positioned as a step in an iterative process. The next phase will focus on selecting specific job functions most affected by technological and organisational transformation, and reconvening stakeholders to co-develop targeted education and training pathways for those roles. The intention is to test whether such a focused, function-level approach can later be scaled or adapted for other parts of the transport and logistics workforce.
You can find the original version of the FOREM study (in French) below:
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