As an expert in skills trends and vocational education, could you highlight the importance of vocational education and training (VET) in today’s rapidly changing job market? How does VET contribute to equipping individuals with the skills and competencies needed to meet evolving industry demands?
Indeed, vocational education and training has a vital role in facilitating economy’s changing skill needs. For instance, according to Cedefop Skills Forecast, residential care and social work will be one of the fastest growing sectors to 2035, which to a certain extent is attributed the intensification of ageing of population and is estimated to grow by almost 7.5% in the decade ahead. Health associate professionals and personal care workers are amongst the largest groups of occupations within the sector and are also VET-related. Therefore, to be able to meet such future demands in both numbers and quality, VET will have to play a key role.
A successful skills system is a key factor in driving economic growth and social cohesion. From your perspective, what are its main components and what is the role of investing in vocational education, both for individuals and society as a whole?
Traditionally, when we think of the skills system, we tend to focus on skills development only. But other aspects, such as skills activation and skills matching are equally important. In other words, it is not only how we create the skills needed, but also how we facilitate the process of these skills been used in the labour market, and ultimately how we make sure that the skills developed and activated are matched at work. Cedefop has elaborated a composite indicator, namely the European Skills Index, aiming at assessing the performance of European Skills Systems, looking at all these components. VET is, of course, a key component of skills development and indeed we observe that investing in VET is positively related to a better skills system performance.
CEDEFOP provides insights on skills intelligence and trends. How will the key mega trends be evolving to the decade ahead and what are the challenges these bring?
Skills intelligence is an expert driven process aiming at translating data into insightful information. On the supply side, ageing is due to continue to 2035, and this will have an impact on the future workforce. The challenge this brings is that the ‘core’ workforce, say those aged 25 to 55, is thinning while the share of older workers (55+) is constantly being increased. On the demand side, driven by transitions such is digitalization, employment is due to become more skills intensive and in fact almost all new jobs (that is jobs due to expansion rather than replacement) will be for highly skilled occupations. Thus, the role of education and training is becoming even more crucial as it will need to adapt fast to secure that the workforce in the decade ahead will be both available and able to respond to simultaneous and often opposing forces.
In the light of the digital transition taking place in the post-Covid world, what are the needs in terms of upskilling and reskilling and how can vocational education play a role in facilitating the transition?
During Covid, according to Cedefop Skills and Jobs Survey, almost half of European workers saw new digital technologies being introduced at their workplace while in the post-Covid world, about four in ten workers have started using technology to perform their tasks at work. Nevertheless, exposure to upskilling for the new technologies is considerably lower for certain ‘vulnerable’ groups such as females, older workers, and the low educated despite them having reported the greatest digital skill gaps. At the same time, labour market participation rates also remain at lower levels for such workers, reflecting to a certain extent a restricted skills potential. Effective vocational education programs must be seen as a vehicle for alleviating digital skill gaps and facilitating, thus, the digital transition.
Dr Ilias Livanos, Cedefop expert in Skill trends and intelligence, ilias.LIVANOS@cedefop.europa.eu
