EU Commission aims to tackle the EU's skilled labour shortage

To remain competitive, the European Union needs a skilled workforce. A shortage of this is therefore a problem, and the Commission and the European Parliament have recently renewed efforts to tackle it.

"Four in five businesses struggle to find the workers that they need with the right skill set. There are more than 40 occupations with EU wide shortages, especially in important sectors like construction, trades, transport and some healthcare professions", Roxana Mînzatu, European Commission Vice-President responsible for social rights, skills and quality employment, told the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

This shortage of skilled labour is due to problems of supply and demand and a mismatch between the qualifications of workers and the needs of employers, as Ilias Livanos, an expert on skills and the labour market at the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop), told Euronews:

"There could be pressures because of the demand. And clearly for the ICT professions, given that they keep developing so rapidly, we don't really know what the demand will be in 5 or 10 years. So how we can prepare for this specific knowledge ? And clearly the systems, education systems are not prepared for this."

This shortage is likely to get worse because of demographic factors and the digital and ecological transitions.

"Firstly, demographics. The EU is going to lose 1 million workers every year until 2050," Peter Bosch, senior research associate at the Egmont Institute, told Euronews.

"Secondly, there is a rapid change in the type of skills that will be needed because of robotisation, because of artificial intelligence, because of what is happening in different sectors," he explained, adding:

"The third reason is