News about Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition

EU Code Week starts on 6 October with over 12,000 activities taking place in more than 45 countries. The EU Code Week is a yearly grass-roots movement supported by the European Commission as part of its strategy for a Digital Single Market, that promotes programming and wider tech knowledge, this year with a special focus on schools. More than a million people are expected to participate in the interactive events, including children, parents and teachers. This year, the initiative calls especially on teachers to try out coding and 'tech' related activities in their classroom.

The Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition Governing Board presented a nine-point Action Plan outlining the Coalition’s priorities for the coming months. The Plan sets out how to expand current membership to all sectors of the economy, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs), how to include all actors and networks that work on the ground with digital skills actions and how to ensure that the EU’s future budget includes a focus on the development of digital competences to support the ongoing digital transformation.

Between December 2016 and July 2018, members of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition offered 10.9 million Europeans a chance to improve their digital skills. In total, 7.4 million digital skills trainings were provided, 1.9 million certifications were delivered and 1.6 million people were reached through awareness-raising campaigns. Moreover, 23 National Coalitions are now working on the ground, promoting digital skills policies and actions.

With the beginning of the new academic year, university students can count on a new EU-funded programme to develop their digital skills: the Digital Opportunity Traineeship Initiative. Students from all faculties can access on-the-job training in a company abroad to improve their digital skills in fields ranging from digital marketing, app development and artificial intelligence. Students will be granted a monthly allowance of around 500 euro, which companies can top up. In the beginning of October over 500 students had started their Digital Opportunity Traineeship across Europe.

On 6 December, Commissioner Mariya Gabriel and guests will discuss the need for advanced skills for societal breakthroughs. The discussion is part of the ICT 2018 conference. At the plenary, Commissioner Gabriel will also hand out the European Digital Skills Awards 2018 to five distinguished digital skills projects who will also exhibit their projects together with all runner-ups. A networking session on the Digital Opportunity Traineeship initiative will also take place on 5 December.

The European Commission wants to put the spotlight on projects which contribute to the development of digital skills in Europe. The Awards will be presented by Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society on 6 December 2018. The Awards are a great opportunity for nominees to showcase their projects, as the winners and four runners up in each category will be invited to exhibit their project at the ICT 2018 conference in Vienna as a reward. The final deadline for the submission of projects is 24 October 2018.

Tomorrow, 18 September, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, Marianne Thyssen, and Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, Mariya Gabriel, will attend the very first meeting of the High-Level Group on the impact of digital transformation, set up by the Commission in May 2018.

On 7 May 2018, the European Commission (Directorates-General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology – CONNECT and for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion – EMPL) announced the creation of the high-level expert group on the impact of the digital transformation on EU labour markets.

There are so many ways in which we can foster digital skills among EU citizens. It is important that we share information on the many good practices across Europe, to see what is working well in one country and replicate it in others, adapting to the specific local needs and demands. The European Commission, with the contribution of the Digital Champions, has identified some great projects that could be an inspiration for other similar initiatives, that could also be supported by the European Social Fund.

Today there are 360,000 online vacancies for information and communication technologies (ICT) professionals in seven EU countries, up more than 170% from just 130,000 in July 2016. On this basis, the number of vacancies for ICT specialists for the entire EU could be estimated at 600,000. These are some results from a pilot project that monitors online vacancies in real-time that can be used by policy makers, universities and companies to provide key information for their digital strategies.