FORECASTING THE EU LABOUR MARKET IN 2020
Date: 26/05/2010
FORECASTING THE EU LABOUR MARKET IN 2020
The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) has released a report entitled "Skills Supply and Demand in Europe: Medium-Term Forecast up to 2020" which tries to predict labour market trends and skills supply in the 27 EU member states between 2010 and 2020. Follow this link to read the full report.
The report claims that transition towards a service economy will intensify and that approximately 7 million new jobs will be created, predominantly in knowledge and skill intensive occupations. It predicts that the share of the jobs held by highly qualified workers will increase at the expense of those held by workers with fewer qualifications. Employment patterns will reflect skill supply trends as younger more highly qualified people enter the labour market whilst older less qualified people leave it for retirement.
This could create an imbalance which would need to be addressed by upgrading the skills of the workforce in line with future needs in order to improve the matching between supply and demand.
This could have negative consequences for prisoners trying to enter/re-enter the labour market after completing a custodial sentence; a large percentage of prisoners have few qualifications. In a labour market which already makes it difficult for ex-offenders to find work, their future prospects will worsen if supply and demand skill matching does not focus on this disadvantaged group as well as the wider European workforce. Ex-offenders need to be trained to fill gaps in the skill supply.
Back to News
