Broad investment in individual digital skills development in the form of tech checks is needed

On Thursday, May 14, the IT & Telecom Companies' IT Skills Council met. The council's task is to develop proposals for initiatives to increase access to skills, something that has long been a major shortage and which the council expects to be again as soon as the Corona crisis situation begins to stabilize.

Normally, the need for IT professional skills, or digital excellence, is at the top of the agenda, but the main topic of Thursday's meeting was instead a proposal for a broader digital skills initiative, the "tech check". The background is the transformation of the entire working life that digitization entails, where various studies (including from the World Economic Forum) claim that a significant part of the workforce's tasks, and in many cases entire professions, will disappear unless extensive skills development efforts are made. Without such an initiative, the entire working life, including the IT and telecom industry, will suffer.

Almega has already presented a proposal in the form of a skills deduction, which is aimed at employers. As a supplement, IT&Telecom companies want to develop a proposal aimed at individuals. One question is how broad such an initiative should be, whether it should apply to all adults, including those who have retired. However, the Council agreed that a skills development initiative should focus on people of working age. Investments in groups in the digital exclusion areas, such as seniors, are certainly important, but should be pursued in other contexts.

A key issue for the Council, which will be worked on in the coming weeks, is to specify what the tech check, or if you like the checks in a "checkbook", should be used for. Should all forms of skills development, both formal (training) and informal (internships, coaching), be covered? Should guidance and mapping also be included? Should it be possible to compensate for loss of income for training that is otherwise free of charge for the individual? A working group will continue to work on this, and everyone in the membership is welcome to contribute with data.

Contact IT&Telecom's Fredrik von Essen.

A description of the basic ideas behind the tech check can be found here.