FOM publishes working paper "Needs of the Internet Industry - Making Offer meet Demand in Training and Education"

FOM published a working paper with the title "Needs of the Internet Industry - Making Offer meet Demand in Training and Education". It represents the major findings from the national roundtables in the participating countries of the e-Jobs Observatory.

The report is part of the (PIN) ProInterNet network project which is conducted in the framework of the Leonardo Da Vinci Lifelong Learning programme and funded by the European Commission. It aims at identifying the current and prospective needs of European small and medium-sized enterprises in regard to internet-related jobs. In the course of the project, the partner countries organized roundtable meetings in order to promote the idea of transparent and transnational job profiles in regard to internet-related jobs and create a network of national key players. The following report presents the results that were obtained from the first round of meetings carried out in seven EU countries. The main conclusions at European level elaborated during the roundtable meetings are the following ones:

• Employees in Europe do not have sufficient high level competences which are needed in future. Therefore, it is urgent to act immediately.
• SMEs ask for a high level of professional qualifications for their vacancies. It is difficult to find adequate candidates with proper soft skills.
• There is a large gap between the approaches of the stakeholders: Training organisations, companies (especially SMEs), intermediary organisations, students and jobseekers.

Furthermore, a compendium of recommendations was gathered for each country in order to improve the current situation in the field of e-jobs. A few examples of the most important ones are:

• Unify education, training and employment by intensifying collaboration between training institutions and prospective employers.
• Anticipate necessities, be open to talent and promote initiatives that facilitate “learning-from-each-other” processes.
• This type of measures should be facilitated by governments at local, national and European level.

The document can be assessed under the following link: http://www.fom.de/fileadmin/fom/downloads/forschungsberichte/arbeitspapiere/AP_22.pdf