Debate: Call to strengthen Sweden's digital skills and competitiveness
The ongoing digital transformation is rapidly creating new opportunities and conditions for businesses and placing entirely new demands on the workforce.
Sweden will not be the best in the world by itself. In order to maintain Swedish competitiveness, the government, together with the business community, social partners, academia, responsible authorities, and others, must raise skills supply efforts to a whole new level.
Digital transformation is fundamentally changing our society. It is happening at an incredible pace and is affecting virtually all sectors and parts of society. We are only at the beginning of the digital revolution, where the internet of things, automation, artificial intelligence and electrification are changing the premise of almost everything. Today's young people will face a labor market and technological landscape that no previous generation has encountered.
But digitalization and business growth are hampered by the lack of digital skills. According to forecasts, by 2024 there could be a shortage of 70 000 people with digital skills in the tech sector alone. The need in the rest of the economy and in society at large is even greater. Today, companies are turning down jobs because of the skills shortage and important future jobs are not being created. So we have sectors that have a high demand for labor, while we have high unemployment in the wake of the corona crisis.
Sweden is a strong technology nation and has been a leader in digitalization. Other countries are running fast and we now risk losing our leading position. Sweden is entirely dependent on excellence and innovation in order to export. The business sector needs to be strong in these areas to stand up to global competition.
We must take advantage of the opportunities that arise and ensure that we as a country are ready to manage the transition in the labor market and be able to create the jobs of the future. A large number of people need to make huge leaps in knowledge in several areas. Our education system must be reviewed to enable students and professionals to develop their skills in the key areas of digitalization.
As part of the government's collaborative program "The digital structural transformation of the business sector", we, the signatories, have developed a number of proposals regarding skills supply. We are convinced that these will play a crucial role and be the best investments out of the crisis and into the future. With this call, we want to mobilize more people to act.
Many of us have a responsibility to make this work. The business community, the social partners, academia, responsible authorities and the government must link arms and act together to an even greater extent and accelerate the work on digital skills supply.
As the ultimate manager of the education system, politics and government have a crucial and driving role.
We see four key areas that are absolutely essential for the digital structural transformation of the business sector, with skills supply as the driving force:
- Increase the accessibility of training in digitalization, for all professionals and specific groups. Challenge and update also current trainings focusing on digital skills.
- Build capacity for continuing education and training of professionals at public training providers. Conduct large-scale pilot initiatives to develop and implement training courses to enable people with different professions in different sectors to further their education.
- Enabling matching between demand and supply. Good matching platforms already exist but are not used enough. For example, establish the platform kompetensmatchning.se at national level.
- Develop incentives and motivation for lifelong learning. This involves various forms of support for both individuals and businesses that want to improve their digital skills.
But the government is not solely responsible. Collaboration is now needed at a whole new level in the positive spirit of the government's collaboration program. This is a call to match the jobs of the future with a well-educated workforce and maintain Sweden's prosperity. Business and academia are ready and we are now starting dialogues with actors in the key areas in order to sharpen strategies and activities.
It is high time for a concerted effort, and this also requires strategic political leadership. Let us now act together to manage the supply of skills for the new jobs and for a competitive business sector.
Fredrik Hörstedt, Chalmers University of Technology
Amy Loutfi, Örebro University
Björn Flintberg, Rise Research Institutes of Sweden
Carla Aguirre Muñoz, Tourim in Skåne
Frida Andersson, Teknikföretagen
Josefine Larsson, IF Metall
Ulrika Lindstrand, Swedish Engineers
Åsa Zetterberg, IT&Telecom Industries