Three ways to boost skills for the green and digital transitions

As EU Member States prepare for the digital and green transitions, it’s important to ensure existing and future workers have the knowledge they need to be part of this change. Encouraging workers to gain relevant skills will pay off, according to the Eurofound report ‘Measures to tackle labour shortages: lessons for future policy’, which suggests that newly-created green jobs are likely to outweigh job losses in carbon-intensive and energy sectors. Meanwhile, adapting to the digital transition will mean ensuring more workers can use new technologies.

Here are three ways that governments and organisations in different EU Member States are responding to this change.

Retain existing labour in new green jobs

Austria: Klimaaktiv. Since 2004, Austria’s national climate protection programme has coordinated and subsidised education and training in green transition occupations. Klimaaktiv works with employers and other stakeholders to identify skills and labour shortages, and train their staff to fill them. In 2021, more than 80% of employers said in a survey by Austria’s Institute of Vocational Research (Institut für Bildungsforschung) that they were severely affected by labour shortages in construction, energy production and efficiency, and transportation. The programme, with an annual budget of more than €6.8 million, focuses on using vocational and lifelong learning to remove barriers to the use of energy-efficient technologies – and estimates there will be 250 000 green jobs in Austria.
Ireland: Just Transition Plan. State-owned peat harvester Bord na Móna is moving from energy generation to renewable energy and peatland rehabilitation as part of Ireland’s Climate Action Plan. About 350 of its 1 000-strong 2019 workforce moved to restore peat bogland; by 2026, 1 435 green jobs are expected to be created in the affected Midlands area. By 2030, the Just Transition Plan forecasts a need for almost 80 000 new recruits in green jobs, including renewable energy engineering, retrofitting housing, electric vehicle technicians and, more widely, built environment jobs. Locally-matched EU funding of €84.5 million supports the ambition of a socially and economically just green transition.

Train underemployed groups in digital

Germany: Jobstarter plus. People who dropped out of school and university and migrants were among the target groups for this Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training programme, which funded and supported regional projects training staff for occupations affected by digital transition in SMEs, through a €13 million annual budget.
Italy: Growing in Digital. This programme paid those who had dropped out of education €500 a month to take part in a free online 50-hour training course in digital skills, followed by a six-month internship. Companies were paid up to €8 060 to employ participants for at least six months.

Improve digital skills in the wider workforce

Finland: Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI). This programme used a range of activities – including a Massive Open Online Course on AI (Elements of AI MOOC from MinnaLearn and the University of Helskinki) – to equip the general public with AI skills for work and in daily life, with the ambition of making the country a frontrunner in the field. Since the programme was set up by the Minister for Economic Affairs, at least 2% of Finland’s population have taken part in training, as have more than 750 000 people around the world. However, training has generally been taken up by those who already had high-level education.
Luxembourg: Digital Skills Bridge. Employees in companies affected by digital transformation were trained through this programme. The programme analysed the impact of new technologies on the company and identified individuals and job roles in need of upskilling. It co-funded training activities for those taking part and supported companies to cover salaries while individuals were taking part in training.

For more information, read the full report ‘Measures to tackle labour shortages: lessons for future policy’.

The green transition is transforming jobs, are you ready?

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