Digitalisation of the Labour Market as a Way to Bridge Its Gap with the Higher Education Market

This paper considers the influence of digitalisation on the labour market and the possibility to bridge the gap between the higher education market and the labour market under the conditions of an increase in digital development. The research is based on the multidisciplinary approach, which covers various aspects of labour capital management, technical development, state regulation and support for the quality of higher education. This paper considers theoretical approaches to the impact of digitalisation on the labour market from the position of technological unemployment and its assessment. Based on this, the main parameters of this unemployment in Kazakhstan—as the leader in the sphere of digital transformation in Central Asia—were determined. Focus was made on the positive impact of digitalisation on the increase in requirements to the qualification skills of employees, which will allow providing jobs to a part of workers with an “excessive” level of education. The main value of this work lies in the substantiation of the directions for the positive influence of digitalisation on the labour market with reservations regarding the risks of professions that set low requirements for qualification. The important conclusions include the availability of a large potential for digitalisation in the reduction of the gap through the creation of jobs with high requirements for qualification and, accordingly, employment of people with excessive level of education. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.