Results and policy reports

Logistics is both a pillar of the European economy and an important source of employment. Yet warehouses increasingly face labour shortages and high staff turnover rates. Digital technologies enhance efficiency and flexibility, but also introduce new risks: they make tasks more repetitive, intensify work demands, and enable the pervasive monitoring and control of workers. The HuLog research project shows how technologies can be deployed differently, keeping humans front and centre, to improve warehousing jobs.

How does digitalisation currently shape work and employment conditions in warehousing? And, most importantly: how can digital technologies – such as warehouse management systems, handheld scanners, conveyor belts and robots – be deployed in ways that create sustainable, high-quality and human-centred jobs in European warehouses?

HuLog is based on three years of international research (2022–2025) in four major logistics hubs in Europe: Limburg (Belgium), Western Poland, West & South Yorkshire (United Kingdom), and Leipzig-Halle (Germany). We used a combination of in-depth interviews, workplace observations, document analysis and stakeholder workshops. In total, we spoke to more than 200 people in 12 warehouses (from workers, frontline managers and senior managers to trade union representatives). We also interviewed 85 stakeholders from the broader companies’ ecosystems, including trade unions, employers’ associations, labour market intermediaries, technology providers and local authorities.

In many warehouses, new technologies are introduced primarily to increase efficiency, productivity and flexibility. Workers and their representatives are often not, or only marginally, involved in these decisions. This results in insufficient attention to the impact of technology on the quality of work.
Our research shows that digitalisation too often leads to the deskilling of jobs, loss of autonomy and job meaningfulness for workers, and increased psychosocial pressure due to intensified performance monitoring. Moreover, digital technology makes it easier to employ more workers through temporary contracts, agency work and subcontracting. This fragments the workforce and undermines social relations in warehouses. These negative effects reduce the attractiveness of warehouse jobs and make it increasingly difficult to recruit, motivate and retain workers. But it does not have to be this way.

Making the digitalisation of warehousing more human-centred and socially sustainable requires deliberate and coordinated choices by companies, governments and other key actors. Based on the research, HuLog formulated six policy principles for a different approach to digitalisation in warehousing:

1. Involve workers and their representatives from start to finish in the adoption of new technology.
2. Regulate data use and make algorithms that steer work subject to collective negotiation.
3. Prevent and redress physical and psychosocial harm resulting from the use of technology.
4. Use technology to foster inclusive, high-quality jobs.
5. Improve employment relations through more stable forms of employment.
6. Organise training and career development opportunities for all workers.

Read the HuLog policy reports from Belgium, Poland and UK (pdf, 6.8 MB) and HuLog policy reports from Germany (pdf, 2.7 MB).

Explore our policy briefs (in Dutch only) to discover how you – as a logistics company (pdf, 108 KB) , government body (pdf, 148 KB), trade union (pdf, 95 KB) or employers’ association (pdf, 161 KB) – can put our recommendations into practice.