The conference, New Skills for New Jobs: Action Now, will focus on the findings of the high-level expert group, which was set up in March 2009 to advise the Commission on how to put the New Skills for New Jobs initiative into practice. The initiative focuses on creating better links between work and education in order to widen and upgrade the skills of European citizens and achieve a closer match between skills and jobs.
Cedefop has contributed substantially to this work. At the conference, it will be presenting its latest forecast, to be published as Future skill supply and demand in Europe: Medium-term forecast up to 2020 (forthcoming, spring 2010).
The report shows that occupations requiring more knowledge and skills will be rising in Europe over the next ten years. The central question for policy-makers is whether Europe is developing the skills and knowledge to fill them.
The conference comes at a time when the European Commission is beginning to shape the EU 2020 Strategy, the follow-up to the Lisbon Strategy. According to the expert group, it is imperative to build stronger bridges between the worlds of work and education and training.
This is all the more urgent today: despite the recession, several million jobs are still waiting to be filled by the right candidates. Reducing the mismatch between skills and jobs is no luxury; on the contrary, it is one of the keys to economic success and social cohesion.
Moreover, labour markets in the EU are changing fast. In spite of the dramatic impact of the crisis on employment, Cedefop's report foresees that job opportunities will rise to roughly 80 million within the next decade. Most of these vacancies will be due to retirements, but several million new jobs are also expected to be created of which the majority will require a greater range and depth of skills than ever before.
The debate and conclusions of the conference will be covered in detail in our next newsletter.
More on skills on our website: http://www.cedefop.europa.eu/EN/identifying-skills-needs/index.aspx
Conference information (DG Employment): http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=88&langId=en&eventsId=232&furtherEvents=yes