Closing event of the European Year of Skills: Sectoral employers join forces to address skills shortages

On 30^th April 2024, the European Commission organised the Closing Event of the European Year of Skills which was kicked off in May 2023.

On that occasion, Ceemet together with eight EU sectoral employers’ organisations – EBF, ECEG, ECSA, Eurocommerce, FIEC, Geopa, Hotrec, and IRU  – organised, with the support of DG EMPL, a discussion session  on “Addressing skills shortages: which innovative solutions?”

Gathering representatives from the European Commission, Member States, industry, worker’s representatives, vocational training experts and many other stakeholders, this  session was the opportunity for the  employers’ representatives to present the challenges faced by  European companies across all sectors in terms of recruiting the highly skilled workforce that they need in order to continue thriving. To this end, they engaged into in-depth discussions with the participants as regards the need to enhance the attractiveness of training, STEM related studies and disciplines as well  as on how to best reinforce the links between the worlds of work and  education in order to ensure the labour market relevance of training.

Furthermore, they also touched on the topic of effective recruitment tools in order to attract talent from outside the EU into the European labour market. Difficulties in terms of upskilling  and reskilling the workforce in place  and solutions to overcome them were also identified.

Delphine Rudelli, Ceemet Director General, wrapped up the panel discussion by emphasizing the need to continue enhanced cooperation between all stakeholders involved, at all appropriate levels, and very importantly to actively involve sectoral social partners in the deployment of skills-related policies in order to successfully close the skills gap.

Moreover, Delphine Rudelli, supported by the other employers’ representatives present, reiterated that  the skills shortage is the major challenge faced by companies today. The EU therefore needs to put everything in place to find solutions to this issue as companies  will only be able to  remain innovative, competitive and thus to continue creating jobs with the rightly skilled workforce. In this regards, and without commenting in detail on the content, Delphine welcomed  the Action Plan on skills and labour shortage which shows political commitment. 

Despite the Year of Skills officially closing on 8 May 2024, the Tech and Industry Employers will continue to actively contribute at European, national and the regional level to overcome the skills gap.