The challenge of employability in Europe
- On 10/12/2019
European economic growth and jobs have been facing several crises during the last years. In 2010, the European Commission established the Europe 2020 strategy. Its purpose is to “improve Europe’s competitiveness and productivity and underpin a sustainable social market economy.“.
The cultural and creative industries (CCIs) have been placed at the heart of the strategy to raise those two topics. CCIs are fast-growing industries in constant evolution, they are linked to many other sectors through innovation, communication, creativity, and information. According to the European Commission, the CCIs are “generating increasing numbers of jobs” and “employ 6.7 million people” in Europe. The main objective of the Europe 2020 strategy is targeting several sectors such as:
- Employment
- Research & Development
- Climate change and energy
- Education
- Poverty and exclusion
The table below from Eurostat shows the EU employment from 2002 to the objective for 2020.
In 2018, 73,2% of European people aged 20 to 64 years old were employed. The objective is to reach a rate of 75% by 2020 with the contribution of the CCIs sector.
In EU countries, educational entrepreneurship has a lower level compared to the one in the USA or the BRICs. Innovation and creative sectors are essential to entrepreneurship.
In line with the position of the European Commission, the Erasmus + program sponsors projects, such as Recreate. This project is, in fact, focusing on the employability of higher education in Europe, mainly to increase the entrepreneurial mindset of European citizens. It aims at providing “learning environments and curricula that stimulate independence, creativity and an entrepreneurial approach to harnessing knowledge”.
Moreover, the existing gap between the skills required by the companies and enterprises and the competencies learned during university represent a big challenge. This obstacle needs to be taken into consideration and finally overtook in order to promote employability.
https://www.recreate.cti.p.lodz.pl/
https://ec.europa.eu/culture/policy/strategic-framework/growth-jobs_en
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Employment_statistics
