1. Skills and competences of the future: the impact of technology
European Parliament working group on digitalisation
Brussels, 27 September 2016
Steve Bainbridge
Thanks for the invitation.
Congratulations on election and membership of European Parliament Employment and social affairs committee. 1

2. Familiar technology headlines
‘March of the machine makes idle hands’
‘Technological unemployment’
‘ [The major domestic challenges is to] maintain full employment at a time when automation…is replacing men’
‘The combination of the computer and the automated self- regulating machine [is leading to a new era of production ] which requires progressively less human labour’
High quality vocational education and training (VET) relevant to labour market needs is a policy priority for the EU.
Europe’s unemployment level, particularly, among young people worryingly high.
Skills, qualifications and employability are central to Europe’s economic recovery.
But the vocational education and training that delivers the skills, qualifications and employability needed faces growing challenges.
How do we combine a highly educated labour force with adequate job creation?
How do we increase participation in a shrinking and ageing labour force?
How can training help address inequality and develop the green economy?
Cedefop European agency devoted to VET is working on these and other questions 2 2

3. Familiar technology headlines from the past
‘March of the machine makes idle hands’
New York Times, 1928
‘Technological unemployment’
JM Keynes, 1933
‘ [The major domestic challenges is to] maintain full employment at a time when automation…is replacing men’
President JF Kennedy, 1962
‘The combination of the computer and the automated self-regulating machine [is leading to a new era of production ] which requires progressively less human labour’
US Ad hoc Committee on the Triple Revolution, 1964
High quality vocational education and training (VET) relevant to labour market needs is a policy priority for the EU.
Europe’s unemployment level, particularly, among young people worryingly high.
Skills, qualifications and employability are central to Europe’s economic recovery.
But the vocational education and training that delivers the skills, qualifications and employability needed faces growing challenges.
How do we combine a highly educated labour force with adequate job creation?
How do we increase participation in a shrinking and ageing labour force?
How can training help address inequality and develop the green economy?
Cedefop European agency devoted to VET is working on these and other questions 3 3

4. Impact of technology on jobs
Job substitution
All jobs are vulnerable
47% automated out of existence in 20 years
New sectors need fewer people
What’s App worth $19bn - 55 employees
GAP US clothes retailer worth $19bn employees
High quality vocational education and training (VET) relevant to labour market needs is a policy priority for the EU.
Europe’s unemployment level, particularly, among young people worryingly high.
Skills, qualifications and employability are central to Europe’s economic recovery.
But the vocational education and training that delivers the skills, qualifications and employability needed faces growing challenges.
How do we combine a highly educated labour force with adequate job creation?
How do we increase participation in a shrinking and ageing labour force?
How can training help address inequality and develop the green economy?
Cedefop European agency devoted to VET is working on these and other questions 4 4

5. Impact of technology on jobs
Job creation
Amount of work is not fixed
65% of children entering primary school today will work in jobs that do not exist
Unforeseen benefits
Electricity created jobs for computer programmers
The car created roads and motels
High quality vocational education and training (VET) relevant to labour market needs is a policy priority for the EU.
Europe’s unemployment level, particularly, among young people worryingly high.
Skills, qualifications and employability are central to Europe’s economic recovery.
But the vocational education and training that delivers the skills, qualifications and employability needed faces growing challenges.
How do we combine a highly educated labour force with adequate job creation?
How do we increase participation in a shrinking and ageing labour force?
How can training help address inequality and develop the green economy?
Cedefop European agency devoted to VET is working on these and other questions 5 5

6. Impact of technology on jobs
Job transformation/complementarity
Falling costs, rising employment
Technology substitutes tasks not people
‘Computers are stupid they only know answers’ – Picasso
People provide competitive advantage
High quality vocational education and training (VET) relevant to labour market needs is a policy priority for the EU.
Europe’s unemployment level, particularly, among young people worryingly high.
Skills, qualifications and employability are central to Europe’s economic recovery.
But the vocational education and training that delivers the skills, qualifications and employability needed faces growing challenges.
How do we combine a highly educated labour force with adequate job creation?
How do we increase participation in a shrinking and ageing labour force?
How can training help address inequality and develop the green economy?
Cedefop European agency devoted to VET is working on these and other questions 6 6

7. Impact of technology on jobs: we decide
‘Above all, technology itself does not dictate the outcomes. Economic and political institutions do. If the ones we have do not give the results we want, we must change them.’
Martin Wolf, Financial Times, 2014
The industrial revolution and technological advance helped give birth to mass education and training systems.
Now we have to reinvent them
High quality vocational education and training (VET) relevant to labour market needs is a policy priority for the EU.
Europe’s unemployment level, particularly, among young people worryingly high.
Skills, qualifications and employability are central to Europe’s economic recovery.
But the vocational education and training that delivers the skills, qualifications and employability needed faces growing challenges.
How do we combine a highly educated labour force with adequate job creation?
How do we increase participation in a shrinking and ageing labour force?
How can training help address inequality and develop the green economy?
Cedefop European agency devoted to VET is working on these and other questions 7 7

8. Impact of technology: why its different this time
Pace of change
Telephone: 75 years, 50m users; mobiles: 20 years, 2bn users
Worries
Falling wages, hollowing out of the labour market, inequality
Demography
Many will retire between now and 2025
9 out of 10 job opportunities will be to replace someone
Demand for higher skills
How do truck drivers become IT specialists?
High quality vocational education and training (VET) relevant to labour market needs is a policy priority for the EU.
Europe’s unemployment level, particularly, among young people worryingly high.
Skills, qualifications and employability are central to Europe’s economic recovery.
But the vocational education and training that delivers the skills, qualifications and employability needed faces growing challenges.
How do we combine a highly educated labour force with adequate job creation?
How do we increase participation in a shrinking and ageing labour force?
How can training help address inequality and develop the green economy?
Cedefop European agency devoted to VET is working on these and other questions 8 8

9. Education and training for the technology revolution
A workforce of clay; we need plastic
Shaped, baked and breakable, or moulded, used and recycled
53% of adult employees in the EU need to learn new things continuously
Raise skill levels – EU Skills Agenda
70 million Europeans with low levels of literacy and numeracy
Around 26% of EU adult employees have significant skill deficits
Address skill mismatch
Skill mismatch not just a lack of skills
29% of graduates overqualified for their job
High quality vocational education and training (VET) relevant to labour market needs is a policy priority for the EU.
Europe’s unemployment level, particularly, among young people worryingly high.
Skills, qualifications and employability are central to Europe’s economic recovery.
But the vocational education and training that delivers the skills, qualifications and employability needed faces growing challenges.
How do we combine a highly educated labour force with adequate job creation?
How do we increase participation in a shrinking and ageing labour force?
How can training help address inequality and develop the green economy?
Cedefop European agency devoted to VET is working on these and other questions 9 9

10. Education and training for the technology revolution
Validation
5% of adults participate in formal further education courses
33% of adults participate in non-formal learning – make it visible!
Better labour market intelligence
EU Skills Panorama
EU, national and sectoral skill forecasts; skill mismatch analyses
Widen the talent pool
Review recruitment methods - the perfect candidate does not exist
Jobs unfilled due to poor working conditions not lack of skills
High quality vocational education and training (VET) relevant to labour market needs is a policy priority for the EU.
Europe’s unemployment level, particularly, among young people worryingly high.
Skills, qualifications and employability are central to Europe’s economic recovery.
But the vocational education and training that delivers the skills, qualifications and employability needed faces growing challenges.
How do we combine a highly educated labour force with adequate job creation?
How do we increase participation in a shrinking and ageing labour force?
How can training help address inequality and develop the green economy?
Cedefop European agency devoted to VET is working on these and other questions 10 10

11. Education and training for the technology revolution
Extend work-based learning
Smoother transition not just to a job, but a good job
Only around 40% of adult employees completed education or training involving some work-based learning
Only 25% of EU enterprises offer apprenticeships
Good jobs
Skill demand is low and stagnant for many European workers 40% of adult employees only need basic literacy to do their job, 58% need only basic numeracy
33% of jobs require only basic ICT or no ICT skills at all.
High quality vocational education and training (VET) relevant to labour market needs is a policy priority for the EU.
Europe’s unemployment level, particularly, among young people worryingly high.
Skills, qualifications and employability are central to Europe’s economic recovery.
But the vocational education and training that delivers the skills, qualifications and employability needed faces growing challenges.
How do we combine a highly educated labour force with adequate job creation?
How do we increase participation in a shrinking and ageing labour force?
How can training help address inequality and develop the green economy?
Cedefop European agency devoted to VET is working on these and other questions 11 11

12. Education and training for the technology revolution
Time for a new human capital theory end?
Reintegration of learning and work
Blurring of general and job specific skills
People as a competitive strategy
Technology does not make businesses competitive – it is the people using it
Our decision
High quality vocational education and training (VET) relevant to labour market needs is a policy priority for the EU.
Europe’s unemployment level, particularly, among young people worryingly high.
Skills, qualifications and employability are central to Europe’s economic recovery.
But the vocational education and training that delivers the skills, qualifications and employability needed faces growing challenges.
How do we combine a highly educated labour force with adequate job creation?
How do we increase participation in a shrinking and ageing labour force?
How can training help address inequality and develop the green economy?
Cedefop European agency devoted to VET is working on these and other questions 12 12

13. Information online or sent to you: ask us
Look for
at cedefop.europa.eu
In addition to the analyses that I have outlined, Cedefop provides other information on training that is available for this committee to use.
Everything is available on our website.
But if there is any information we can provide for you please ask.