Sweden loses out as competition intensifies
The European Commission's annual review of the Member States' digitalization has been presented. Once again, Sweden is high up in the ranking, which is of course good and something that the Swedish government is highlighting in its communication. But despite the top spot, there are several concerns.
It is not mentioned in Minister Ygeman's press release, but Sweden loses the silver medal from previous years and is now in third place. Denmark has overtaken both Sweden and Finland. In an area where the government and parliament have high ambitions for the country, Sweden even falls below the EU average. This concerns spectrum allocation and preparedness for 5G. Open data is also poor - Sweden is ranked 16th out of 27, after a significant improvement. In the area of high-speed broadband coverage in sparsely populated areas, Sweden also ranks an unflattering ninth, behind countries such as Romania, Portugal and Spain.
Broad skills, but skills shortages
The index measures four areas: human capital, connectivity, integration of digital technologies in business and digital public services. Sweden's main strength in the survey is its human capital, with 72% of the population having at least basic digital skills. This is probably good, but at the same time it is the same level as in previous surveys and no progress is being made in this area. However, access to more advanced knowledge is even worse. The Commission notes that Sweden needs to use more specialist skills (expertise) and that the level of specialists must be raised to strengthen competitiveness in both business and research. At the same time, the Commission takes note of TechSverige's analysis that 70,000 IT specialists will be missing by 2024. Bad company as competition intensifies?
Although Sweden still ranks well among EU countries, the competition is global. One merit of the ranking is that the Commission has also looked at countries outside the EU. The US beats the top four EU countries, and nine out of eighteen non-EU countries are above the EU average. So in reality, competition is much tougher than Sweden's top ranking suggests when you include countries such as Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Australia, Israel and Japan. The Commission's analysis also notes that Swedish companies have been successful in integrating digital technologies (in third place in the EU), but that the growth rate is slowing down while other countries continue to make progress. "The ongoing digital transformation is happening at a rapid pace and other countries are running fast. It is important that we take advantage of the opportunities offered by digitalization to tackle many of the societal challenges Sweden faces today.
The index measures four areas: human capital, connectivity, integration of digital technologies in business and digital public services. Sweden's main strength in the survey is its human capital, with 72% of the population having at least basic digital skills. This is probably good, but at the same time it is the same level as in previous surveys and no progress is being made in this area. However, access to more advanced knowledge is even worse. The Commission notes that Sweden needs to use more specialist skills (expertise) and that the level of specialists must be raised to strengthen competitiveness in both business and research. At the same time, the Commission takes note of TechSverige's analysis that 70,000 IT specialists will be missing by 2024. Bad company as competition intensifies?
Although Sweden still ranks well among EU countries, the competition is global. One merit of the ranking is that the Commission has also looked at countries outside the EU. The US beats the top four EU countries, and nine out of eighteen non-EU countries are above the EU average. So in reality, competition is much tougher than Sweden's top ranking suggests when you include countries such as Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Australia, Israel and Japan. The Commission's analysis also notes that Swedish companies have been successful in integrating digital technologies (in third place in the EU), but that the growth rate is slowing down while other countries continue to make progress. "The ongoing digital transformation is happening at a rapid pace and other countries are running fast. It is important that we take advantage of the opportunities offered by digitalization to tackle many of the societal challenges Sweden faces today.
We need a clear political will and ambition to be among the top places and to manage the supply of skills and maintain Swedish competitiveness so that next year we do not see ourselves overtaken by more countries in next year's DESI ranking. I therefore hope that digitization issues will come into focus among several parliamentary parties and that the political debate ahead of next year's parliamentary elections will at least in part be about these conditions so important for Sweden's future.
Christina Ramm Ericson,
Head of Industrial Policy