Cedefop’s newly launched 2023 skills forecast sees the EU-27 economy grow in the projection period up to 2035, albeit at a low pace of slightly above 1% per annum on average. Higher future energy and food prices are expected to impact employment negatively due to slower economic growth. However, the green and digital transitions will have a positive employment impact on several sectors.
Electronics, electrical equipment and machinery equipment manufacture are among such sectors because of the increased demand for efficient appliances and manufacture of renewable technologies (e.g. wind turbines). The digital transition will continue to impact employment across sectors, with demand in the telecommunications and computer programming expected to grow across most EU Member States.
In turn, employment is due to become more skills-intensive than in the past with demand for high-skilled occupations showing a drastic increase. Even though most job openings will result from the need to replace existing workers, due to retirement or other reasons, there will be significant employment gains for occupational groups such as science and engineering, business and administration, and information and communication professionals.
Regarding future labour shortages, Cedefop expert Ilias Livanos, who is responsible for the skills forecast and the development of the ‘future shortage indicator’, notes: ‘Health professionals and personal care workers are amongst the occupations likely to experience labour shortages to 2035, not only because of increasing demand, but also due to replacement needs and educational imbalances.’
Cedefop’s skills forecast offers quantitative estimations of future trends in employment by business industry and occupation for all Member States, plus a few more countries. It uses harmonised international data and a common methodological approach to offer cross-country comparisons and benchmarking, rather than replace national forecasting models. The macroeconomic context is built around the most likely scenario, using official economic and population projections.
The 2023 skills forecast used data and assumptions capturing recent policies and phenomena such as the European Green Deal, the COVID-19 impact, changes in energy and commodity prices, as well as the ongoing war in Ukraine. Due to the current uncertain outlook in terms of strong inflation and critical commodity market bottlenecks, a high risk of recession remains.