Portugal: strengthening digital skills for competitiveness and inclusion

Background

The Portuguese Government has made the development of a digital, creative and innovative society one of its challenges, in line with the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan. Implementation of a set of vocational training policies is therefore a priority to develop the Portuguese population's digital skills. These policies are crucial in embracing the benefits of technological tools available given the increasing digitisation of economic activity, maximising work efficiency and promoting people's participation in a more inclusive labour market.

The Employment More Digital 2025 initiative (Emprego+Digital 2025) is launched to achieve these goals and provide training opportunities with benefits for both companies and workers. The main benefits for enterprises are:

• improved ability to implement digital strategies;
• flexibility to incorporate new technologies;

The main benefits for employees are:

• becoming more skilled;
• enjoying better employability prospects;
• acquiring professional qualifications;

Training employment more digital scheme

The Training Employment More Digital scheme (Formação Emprego + Digital) is integrated in the Employment More Digital 2025 initiative. It aims at upskilling and reskilling enterprise and social economy employees in the digital area to enable the digital transformation of those involved. The training actions are designed to help companies face future challenges, based on implementing specialised digital training projects defined according to employee and sectoral needs.

Developed in partnership with the Public Employment Service, the business confederations and the social sector organisations, the scheme has the following objectives:

• improve digital skills as an inclusive factor for employees and as an economic transformer;
• foster the empowerment and digital inclusion of people and the transformation of enterprises, thus contributing to enterprise competitiveness;
• promote a faster adjustment between the labour market supply and demand of skills and qualifications in the digital area, by offering training for of specific skill development.

The main features of these training courses are:

• related to competence units (CU) and/or short duration training units (UFCD) of the technological component of the digital area in the national qualifications catalogue (CNQ), whenever possible;
• duration from 25 to 200 hours. Up to 50% of the training content may be developed through tailor-made training activities, to which the minimum number of hours required does not apply;
• face-to-face or blended learning formats;
• certification if training is successfully completed;
• free for company employees.

Priority sectors of activity and training areas

The measure targets employees from enterprises in strategic country sectors or from industries particularly affected by digital transformation processes, such as: motor vehicle, construction, electrical and electronic, pharmaceutical, forestry and paper transformation, wood and furniture, marble, granite and ceramics, human health and social work activities, naval, chemical, petrochemical and refining, accommodation and food service activities, information and communication, agriculture, economy of the sea, retail and the social sector.

Read more

• Formação Emprego + Digital [Training employment more digital]
• Portaria n.º 246/2022, de 27 de setembro [Government Order No 246/2022 of 26 September]  
• Eurocid. Emprego + Digital 2025 [Employment + Digital 2025]