Digital skills gaps in the work force

In the middle-skill job market, the world is increasingly divided between the jobs that demand digital skills and the ones that don’t—and the ones that don’t are falling behind.

Digital skills, generally speaking, for all today’s jobs is a conditio sine qua non, at least a mere knowledge at a basic level.

An interesting report over the workforce present in (THE DIGITAL SKILLS GAP IN THE WORKFORCE, run by Capital One and Burning Glass) shows that much of the debate over technology in the workforce has focused on sophisticated skills, such as writing code. It is inspiring also for the European situation, not that far from.

The more significant impact on the middle-skill job market is in the humbler world of everyday software: spreadsheets and word processing, programs for medical billing and running computerized drill presses.

Main findings are that nearly eight in 10 middle-skill jobs require digital skills, digitally intensive middle-skill occupations are growing faster than other middle-skill jobs and digitally intensive middle-skill jobs pay more than middle-skill jobs that do not require a digital component.

Furthermore, middle-skill jobs that are not digitally intensive have had the slowest growth of any category.

In any case other important raising issue is the growth of the use of spreadsheets and employees are to be from now on at least familiar with basics on productivity software.

Other tendency is the increase of the need of advanced digital skills for all those jobs dealing with a specific software (such as graphic designer, computer support specialist but also communication managers..). Obviously, these occupations offer the strongest opportunity for middle-skill job seekers in terms of salary and growth as well as career advancement. Occupationally Specific Digital Skills are focused on technologies commonly used in Health Care, Production, and Manufacturing occupations and not for entry-level positions. This research was funded by Capital One, which announced a $150 million Future Edge initiative to fund community grants and initiatives over the next five years to help empower more Americans to succeed in an ever-changing digitally-driven economy.

Generally speaking, employers pay a premium for this knowledge. Especially in Europe it is estimated that 40% of the EU population is considered as having insufficient digital skills: to tackle this situation, the European Commission is launching a multi-stakeholder partnership to ensure that individuals and the labour force in Europe are equipped with adequate digital skills, which is the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition, in order to establishing national digital skills coalitions connecting public authorities, business, education, training and labour market stakeholders, besides to developing concrete measures to bring digital skills and competences to all levels of education and training, supporting teachers and educators and promoting active involvement of business and other organisations.

(Source: THE DIGITAL SKILLS GAP IN THE WORKFORCE, by Capital One and Burning Glass, INFOGRAPHIC: Digital skills in Europe https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/infographic/infographic-digital-skills-in-europe/ and Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en//digital-skills-jobs-coalition )

Article realized for the Vocational Skills Weekdiscover-your-talent