According to current EU reports, European education systems are not yet fit to provide the qualifications needed for the green and digital transitions.
The EU institutions currently focus strongly on the skills necessary for the European economies and the green transition – or rather the lack thereof. On 6 July 2023, the European Commission (EC) published its annual report on Employment and Social Developments in Europe (ESDE 2023). On the same day, the EC also published its 2023 Strategic Foresight Report with a focus on sustainability and open strategic autonomy. On 11 July 2023, in turn, the European Parliament plenary adopted a resolution on fostering and adapting vocational training (VET) for the new Industry 4.0. This flurry of reports, notably in the Year of Skills, all highlight the challenge of having enough qualified and skilled workers in Europe to enable the green and digital transitions. The education systems and immigration rules are key elements in addressing this challenge.
The Commission’s employment report starts by presenting the state-of-play: It comes as no surprise that persistent labour shortages are found in many fields, both in high-skilled and low-skilled jobs. The report states specifically the following sectors to be strongly affected by skills shortages: construction, healthcare, ICT, engineering and mathematics. The report sees these shortages to exacerbate in the near future, especially with the combination of growing skills needs and a decreasing working-age population in Europe. However, already now in 2023, 28% of all employers in the EU report that these labour shortages limit production in manufacturing, while in services and construction this rate increases to 31%. The dire situation is also shown by the fact that the job vacancy rate is the highest ever recorded in the EU with 2.9%. This will not only affect production in the short-term but carries the risk of hampering innovation and investment in research and development, reducing European competitiveness in the long-term. The cause is on the one hand the challenge to find skilled people for the jobs, but on the other hand also the difficulty to retain the existing workforce. The report states that this is often due to poor working conditions in the affected sectors, such as for example the healthcare service sector.
Now when it comes to possible ways forward to addressing these challenges, the report makes the following recommendations: i. Make accessible, affordable and high-quality early childhood education and care available as it can contribute to removing barriers to entering the labour market, ii. Invest in adult learning and skills development through continuing education programmes, linked with better job matching, iii. Improve work and pay conditions and social protection coverage, iv. Support more women to enter the ICT field, v. Attract workers from outside the EU. On the last point, the EC is expected to adopt a new initiative on the recognition of qualification of skills attained abroad later this year.
The Strategic Foresight Report makes further precisions to the employment and skills analysis. The report states that today 85% of all companies in the EU do not have sufficient staff with the competences needed to navigate the green and digital transitions. This is an enormous challenge for the viability of these transitions and Europe’s competitiveness as a whole. The report mentions the examples of the fuel cell hydrogen industry and the photovoltaic industry that require an additional 180’000 and 66’000 qualified workers respectively by 2030. The report makes the clear statement that the European education and training systems are not yet fit for the magnitude and speed of these transformations. And on top of that, skills training outside of formal qualifications becomes more relevant. The Commission therefore reiterates the above-mentioned key points of increasing investment in early education and in lifelong learning, in technical but also transversal and entrepreneurial skills. The report sees an important role in this regard for the vocational education and training systems (VET) and new innovative ways of teaching and learning. Lastly, when it comes to attracting workers from outside the EU, the foresight report adds that the communities of origin need to be supported in order to avoid a brain drain scenario.
The European Parliament’s resolution largely goes in the same direction, and also puts a strong focus on the role of VET and lifelong learning. Adult and continuing education is particularly relevant to up- and reskill older persons who need or wish to stay professionally active, which is especially relevant in a shrinking labour market. The resolution further highlights the positive examples of educational paid leave and of Erasmus+ to strengthen VET systems across Europe.