ZEW Economist Melanie Arntz to Become Vice Director of IAB

Professor Melanie Arntz, deputy head of ZEW’s Research Unit “Labour Markets and Social Insurance”, is leaving ZEW after 22 years to transfer to the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) where she will take over as the institute’s Vice Director from January 2025. The position is linked to a W3 professorship for labour and occupational research at the Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU).

“I am very much looking forward to this new challenge as head of a large research institute and also the opportunity to maintain a close exchange with the Federal Employment Agency in the future, enabling me to contribute my research on structural change of labour markets,” says Professor Arntz.

The head of ZEW’s “Labour Markets and Social Insurance” unit, Professor Nicolas Ziebarth, comments: “Melanie Arntz has contributed for many years to ZEW’s research activities. The fact that she has been appointed Vice Director of Germany’s largest institute for employment research shows the appreciation of our evidence-based labour market research.”

ZEW President Professor Achim Wambach, PhD adds: “We congratulate Melanie Arntz on the appointment as professor at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and as Vice Director of the Institute for Employment Research. The research work of Melanie Arntz has been decisive for our institute. Her studies on technological change in the world of work and its impact on employment have had, and continue to have, great influence on the debate surrounding the future of work. We would like to thank Melanie Arntz for her successful work and look forward to collaborating with her and the IAB in the future on the topic of digitalisation in the working world.”

At ZEW, Professor Arntz was contact person for the research area “Digitalisation and structural change”. She has many years’ experience in managing research projects and in science-based policy advice, e.g. as a member of the scientific advisory council of the skilled labour monitoring for the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and as a member of the “Rat der Arbeitswelt” (Council of the Working World), to which she was appointed in 2022.