Brussels, 06/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission and the Greek Presidency of the Council of Ministers presented the “e-Skills for Jobs” initiative in Athens on Tuesday 6 May. This European project aims to promote the advantages of the information and communication technology (ICT) sector among the public. The objective of this campaign is to train more ICT sector specialists to meet the challenges of the future in areas such as e-health, e-education, e-cities, e-administration and sustainable development, as well as transport, aeronautics, logistics, automobiles and medical imaging. The demand for jobs requiring digital skills is rapidly increasing and adding to the significant current jobs deficit in this area. According to the Commission, by 2020, there could be million jobs going unfilled because of the skills shortage in this area.
Greece supports this European initiative and has decided to set up its own national coalition on the European model, in collaboration with the ICT industry, in an effort to raise the awareness of young people and potential entrepreneurs on the importance of digital skills. Greece is the sixth member state to have formally launched a national coalition of this sort following on from Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Malta. Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Slovakia and Spain have announced that they are planning to set up a similar initiative. Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes, stated: “There is constant digital job growth in Europe despite the crisis. I am glad Greece joins our vision for offering all Europeans the digital skills they need. The Greek Coalition is an inspiring model for other countries that should also move forward with their own coalitions”. The Greek coalition has pledged to develop an action plan within three months and involve more partners in the future. So far, nine partner organisations are involved in the coalition.
On 6 May, the Commission published a study entitled “e-Skills in Europe: measuring Progress and Moving Ahead”. This suggests that by 2020 the number of ICT management, architecture and analysis jobs will grow by 44% compared to 2011, and related jobs by 16%. It is particularly in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and France that demand is strong and where more than 60% of Europe's digital jobs vacancies are located. The study also underlined the need to improve the level of ICT knowledge provided by higher education colleges. (IL)