IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The European Commission issued an action call in Davos for companies, governments, educator, social partners, employment service providers and civil society at national and regional levels to join its effort to give young Europeans the tools to enter digital careers or to create jobs as entrepreneurs. Europe has up to 700,000 unfilled ICT jobs and declining competitiveness at a time when the the number of digital jobs is growing by 3 percent a year during the crisis and the number of new ICT graduates and skilled ICT workers is shrinking. EC vice president Neelie Kroes called on joint action between governments and companies to bridge the digital skills gap.

The EC will collect pledges on new jobs, internships, training places, start-up funding, free online university courses and more. The first wave of those committing to act include Telefonica, Nokia, SAP, Cisco, HP, Alcatel-Lucent, Randstad, ENI, Telenor, ARM and others. The EC will build the pledges received into the launch of a Grand Coalition for Digital Skills and Jobs at a major pledging conference on 4-5 March. Key areas include industry-led training, assisting labour mobility, certifying skills, improving school and university curricula, raising awareness, and creating an entrepreneur friendly environment for start-ups.

On joining the Grand Coalition, Telefonica COO Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete pledged that the operator would create over 1,000 start-up companies by 2015. It has already opened five start-up incubators in Europe supporting 60 start-ups. The operator has commissioned a survey of 18-30 year-olds in the EU and will run the Campus Party Europe technology festival in London in September this year. The event previously held in Berlin gathers over 10,000 bright young minds from around Europe to share digital skills, explore innovations and encourage entrepreneurship. In 2012 Telefonica offered training, mentoring for 4,180 young people to start their own social projects and recruited 1,400 interns, apprentices and graduates.

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Quelle/Source: Telecompaper, 25.01.2013

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