On Thursday 24 October in Strasbourg, MEPs discussed skills and labour shortages in the EU and called for more training to meet the new needs of businesses in the fields of the green and digital transitions, increased public and private investment to improve training, the individual right to continuing training, and improved working conditions and pay in occupations suffering from shortages, such as health and long-term care or professions linked to the green transition, such as the installation of solar panels.
This debate on the response to the ‘Draghi’ report and its findings on shortages in the European labour market was attended by of Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski. The report by the former President of the ECB shows “clearly that we must rise to the challenge of skills” if we are to remain a competitive area, said the Commissioner.
He issued a reminder of the investment devoted to training at this stage: around €44 billion from the Cohesion Fund and the ESF+ as well as the Just Transition Fund.
The European labour market is losing essential skills and manpower, with “one million fewer workers every year, and this will continue to be the case until 2050 as the population ages”. He pointed out that one in five SMEs in Europe are struggling to find the skills they need, and that four out of five European companies are seeing their business slow down as a result of difficulties in recruiting and finding the right skills.
A number of MEPs, such as Belgian EPP member Liesbet Sommen, stressed the need for more training or a ‘social right’ to continuing training, as Gabriele Bischoff (S&D, German) put it, citing also the German example of ‘qualifications councils’ bringing together trade unions and employers to assess their respective needs.
For the ECR Group, one of the solutions is to ensure greater ‘fluidity’ between competences, but the Council of the EU is also sending out the wrong signals, for example by seeking to reduce funding for research or Erasmus programmes. Furthermore, no progress is in sight “on women’s pay”. All these decisions will not make it possible to implement policies to make the EU more competitive.
The Renew Europe group believes that every effort should be made to train the next generation for new jobs, such as those linked to the energy transition, and to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy.
“We must guarantee access to skills upgrading and retraining for all, while promoting lifelong learning equally and at all stages. Social partners must play a crucial role in this process, and we must strengthen and guarantee their role”, commented German EPP member Dennis Radtke. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)