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Report shows digital skills are required across all types of work, also for jobs outside the office

Today the European Commission publishes a report on the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on job quality. Looking at the evidence from 12 specific types of non-office jobs, the report found that the use of digital technologies is beginning to have a profound effect on the tasks carried out and the skills required for many jobs outside the traditional office.

The report is the first part of a wide-ranging study which will provide comprehensive evidence regarding digital skills in the workplace. The results will feed into the Commission's work on digital skills and its new initiative the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition.

The 12 non-office based job profiles presented are: dairy farmer, machine operator, industrial designer, building electrician, transport clerk, car mechanic, police detective, VET teacher, property caretaker, doctor in a hospital, animator and desktop publisher.

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A new Skills Agenda for Europe puts forward 10 actions to equip people in Europe with better skills

On the 10th of June, the European Commission has adopted a new and comprehensive Skills Agenda for Europe. The aim is to ensure that people develop a broad set of skills from early on in life and to make the most of Europe's human capital, which will ultimately boost employability, competitiveness and growth in Europe.

In the future, it is estimated that nearly all jobs will require some level of digital skills. The Digital Single Market could contribute €415 billion per year to the EU economy, therefore making the adoption of digital skills crucial step towards innovation and inclusion of EU citizens. According to studies, 70 million Europeans lack adequate reading and writing skills, and even more have poor numeracy and digitals skills. 40% of European employers report that they cannot find people with the right skills to grow and innovate. By 2020 there will be 756.000 unfilled vacancies for ICT professionals in the whole economy. New ways of working, including collaborative economy models, the digitalization of various facets of life, and changes in work organization across industries all have an impact on the types of skills needed.

eSkills4Jobs: "Why now is the time to give young people the digital skills to innovate and lead Europe"

Eva Paunova, Bulgarian MEP and eSkills for Jobs Ambassador, believes that it is high time to make sure that young people are equipped with the right digital skills so that they can reach their full potential as innovators and leaders.

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Join blog post by A.Ansip and G.H.Oettinger: The importance of having the right skills in the digital age

In a joint blog post, Andrus Ansip, European Commission Vice-President for the #DigitalSingleMarket, and Günther H. Oettinger European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, stressed out the importance of having the right skills in the digital age.

As technology is changing almost every aspect of our lives, Europeans need digital skills as a basic requirement to get ahead in society as well as in the modern workplace. It is no longer just about reading or writing skills. Being able to use digital technologies and apply them in the workplace is indeed important for creating a more competitive and growth-oriented Europe. Coding and programming are increasingly seen as great way to get more young people interested in digital careers.

To tackle the digital skills gap, a broader, more inclusive and pan-European effort is required. On June 10, Marianne Thyssen, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, launched the #EUSkillsAgenda - New Skills Agenda for Europe with a solid focus on digital skills and jobs with the planned Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition.

Furthermore, Andrus Ansip and Günther H. Oettinger write, the European Commission cannot do this alone, not even by working with national governments. The Coalition will bring together all interested parties from the public and private sectors - national authorities from the EU's 28 countries, education providers, employment services, for example - to develop and expand the pool of European digital talent. It will help to equip people with the right skills – young and old, the employed as well as jobseekers – and to improve their employability.

Source

"Skills for a Digital World - 2016 Ministerial Meeting on the Digital Economy Background Report" published by OECD on June 2nd, 2016

This report provides new evidence on the effects of digital technologies on the demand for skills and discusses key policies for skills development adapted to the digital economy. Workers across an increasing range of occupations need generic and/or advanced ICT skills to use such technologies effectively. More fundamentally, the diffusion of digital technologies is changing how work is done, raising demand for complementary skills such as information processing, self-direction, problem solving and communication. This report discusses measures that can help to ensure that the diffusion of digital technologies is accompanied by the development of the skills needed for their effective use, an increase in the responsiveness of national skills development systems to changes in skills demand and of new learning opportunities created by digital technologies.

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New record for the EU Code Week: more than half a million people took part in 2015

Almost 570,000 people cross Europe and beyond learned to create with code during EU Code Week that took place from 10 to 18 October 2015. Thousands of events were organised where people, from children to seniors, could learn how the computer works behind the screen. Save the date for this year's EU Code Week: 15 to 23 October 2016!

7,594 events took place in 48 countries in the EU and beyond including the United States and Australia as well as countries in Africa and Asia. Get ready for EU code week 2016 - 15 to 23 October!

Code Week – which started as a European movement – went world-wide in 2015. Apart from the EU Member States, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, the Isle of Man, Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey events took place in Australia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, Egypt, South Korea, Moldova, Morocco, Russia, Taiwan, Tunisia, Ukraine and the United States.

Top of the events league were Italy (2,369 events) and Poland (2,064 events) followed by Spain (509), Greece (305) and Ireland (236). In total 569,700 people participated in EU Code Week events, well over 526,000 participants in the EU.

Source article

Code Week EU 2016 – Skill up for the digital world with #codeEU!

The 4^th edition of Code Week EU is less than five months away! Between 15 and 23 October, millions of children, young adults, adults, parents, teachers, entrepreneurs, and policy makers will again come together at events, in classrooms and libraries across Europe and beyond to learn to create with code.

Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip said: "Digital skills are essential for everyone in the 21st century. Coding is a fun and engaging way to learn IT and to do so in a collaborative environment. This year we must make sure that everyone across Europe can participate in Code Week – and this is why I welcome partnerships with local and regional authorities, public libraries and associations for young people".

Alessandro Bogliolo, Code Week ambassador coordinator said: "Coding turns intuitions into solutions, ideas into innovation. Computational thinking unleashes the potential of creativity. It's not about technology, it's a matter of personal empowerment. Don't miss the opportunity learn some coding during Europe Code Week 2016 and share the thrill with your family, pupils and students, friends as well as with millions of people around the world."

Source article

ITpreneurs: "Taking a Collective Approach to Address the IT Skills Gap"

How acute is the IT skills gap? In Europe, more than 40% of companies have expressed difficulties about finding staff with the right skills and experience to fill IT positions. On 16 June 2016, the Council of European Professional Informatics Societies (CEPIS) will host the 1st IT Professionalism Europe Conference in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This conference aims to bring together key stakeholders to share best practices to develop IT talents and stimulate more efforts on corporate and government levels to tackle this challenge.

As a provider of training content and services to IT training and consulting companies, ITpreneurs has a strong interest on topics relating to competence development of IT professionals. I have an opportunity to speak with Fiona Fanning, Secretary General at CEPIS recently. Fiona explains why IT training and consulting providers will find this upcoming conference both relevant and timely.

Join e-Skills competitions and get your chance to learn Swift: a fun programming language!

Swift is an intuitive programming language that is easy and fun to learn! With it you can create amazing iOS apps and speed up your career as a developer! Interested to get your hands on Swift? Join the eSkills competitions and get a chance to win a 12.5K scholarship with the App Academy in Amsterdam!

If you are not yet familiar with Swift, here is some information that will make you want to get started right away!

You can experiment with Swift code in "Playgrounds": one of Swift's most interesting features is an interactive environment called a Playground. This tool lets you see the effects of changes or additions to code as you type, without going through the time-consuming rigmarole of running the code through the compiler and executing it.
Swift offers type inference: coders don't need to spend time annotating variables with type information and risk making mistakes; in most cases, the compiler can infer the type from the value that a variable is being set with.
Swift introduces Generics: these are functions that can be reused with different variable types without being rewritten for each type.

eSkills competition: Innovative App Developer category

Now that you know about Swift, what are you waiting for to take the next step as an app developer? Submit your project for the Innovative App Developer category and get the chance to win a 12.5K scholarship with the App Academy in Amsterdam. Deadline for submission of entries is 31 July 2016!

Get Online Week (GOW) 2016 Final Report is published!

This year Telecentre Europe's flagship campaign Get Online Week reached 122,000 Europeans across 27 countries. From all those involved in campaign activities, around 79,000 were young people and 12,000 were unemployed. A record number of 29 campaign partners organised more than 5,100 various activities and promoted the campaign in their countries.

The seventh edition of the European Get Online Week (GOW) to digitally empower and employ people was celebrated on 14-20 March this year. With a record number of 29 campaign partners involved in 27 countries, the campaign proved again the necessity to raise awareness about ICT competence and the importance to see every European digitally savvy. European GOW 2016 was again part of eSkills for Jobs to tackle youth unemployment.

This year’s campaign focused around two themes: trust and confidence, and digital jobs. The overall aim was to engage and empower people to use technology and the Internet with confidence and skills that allow them to benefit of the world of online opportunities. Also, it brought stakeholders together at national and local level to provide training and support to youth and unemployed towards digital careers.

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