European Year of Skills: National Coalitions in the Digital Skills & Jobs Platform

In the EU’s labour market there is a shortage of skilled workers in ICT. Therefore, upskilling the current workforce and educating the future workforce are crucial, especially when it comes to ensuring the uptake of fast-changing new technologies such as AI, quantum, advanced semiconductors or blockchain, and key areas (cybersecurity, coding) by businesses and workers.

The EU has put forward several initiatives to tackle this challenge, including the national coalitions for digital skills and jobs. This initiative was launched by the European Commission in December 2016, bringing together EU countries, companies, social partners, non-profit organisations, and training organisations working to reduce the shortage of ICT professionals in the EU. Since 2021, National coalitions have been receiving funding to tackle the need for digital skills thanks to the support of the CEF Programme.

The European Digital Skills and Job Platform

In 2019, the European Commission together with the European Network of national coalitions launched the European Digital Skills and Job Platform as the single entry point to a variety of information and resources for everyone interested in advancing their digital skills. The platform gathers 21 national coalitions and hosts more than 2 270 published content items. The Platform contributes to the DIGITAL Europe Programme, aspiring to boost the digital competencies of European society and workforce Together with DIGITAL Europe Programme and the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition, the platform fosters the European expertise in advanced digital technologies.

The coalitions, currently established in 25 EU countries, play a crucial role in providing trainings, good practices, or webinars to boost digital skills.

e-Skill Malta Foundation

The e-Skills Malta Foundation has launched the Digital Skills Bootcamps and Women in ICT Events 2022. The lack of female professionals in ICT and their access to jobs and trainings in the field is becoming a concern. This Maltese initiative aims to raise awareness of this problem and to enable women to contribute to the digital economy. The coalition also developed Guidelines to retain women in the ICT sector as well as an ambassadors network.

Portugal’s Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition

The Portugal’s Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition developed the campaign ‘'Engenheira por um dia' (Female Engineer for a day) at schools to encourage young girls to pursue a career in the ICT domain, debunking the notion that ICT is for boys.

National coalition for Latvia (LIKTA)

SMEs play an important role in the digital transformation of our economies, so increasing the uptake of digitisation by them is a necessity. The national coalition for Latvia, LIKTA, has set up a national programme focused on SMEs that delivered more than 70 trainings to over 1 300 employees.

Background

The Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL) aims to build the strategic digital capacities of the EU and to facilitate the wide deployment of digital technologies. With an overall budget of €7.5 billion, out of which €0.8 billion is managed by HaDEA, the programme will support investments in the following sectors:

• High Performance Computing
• Cloud, data and Artificial Intelligence
• Cybersecurity
• Advanced digital skills
• Accelerating best use of technologies

The first generation of the Connecting Europe Facility “Telecom” strand (2014-2020) facilitated the cross-border interaction between public administrations, businesses and citizens, by deploying Digital Service Infrastructures (DSIs), connectivity in local communities (WiFi4EU) and broadband networks (through equity and loan instruments).

With a budget of approximately €1 billion, of which €203 million are now managed by HaDEA, the programme supported digital services like specific digital service infrastructures covering areas such as European Platform for Digital Jobs and Skills