Education aligned with market demand and a diverse talent pool will enable Europe’s growth in this Transformative Age

Talent is in short supply today – both in Europe, and elsewhere. In fact, our recent report, Building a Better Working Europe: Unlocking Europe’s digital growth potential, based on a survey of HR leaders, found that the rapid pace of innovation and new technologies was the single biggest barrier to recruitment for almost half of respondents. Skills in cyber security, AI and robotics are particularly hard to source.

The pronounced shortage of talented Europeans with specialist digital skills is a grave concern given that Europe already lags behind the US and China in its share of the lucrative and fast-growing tech market. Clearly Europe needs to address this shortage if is to be a major technological force in future.

Going forward, technology will also need to be built in a way that truly reflects our society. So if we are to use AI, for example, we need to ensure that our machines are sensitive to people’s differences in age, ethnicity, gender, language, race and skin color. Today targeted advertising is already feeding bias. Certain algorithms have been perpetuating the pay gap by directing listings for higher-paying jobs toward men. In fact, just a few weeks ago, Amazon announced that it had scrapped a secret AI recruiting tool that showed negative bias against women.

Talent shortage

Cultural and ethnological diversity is one of Europe’s greatest strengths – the continent is a mélange of countries, cultures and people – but are we using our heritage to its full advantage? We need to consider diversity as a value and equip women with digital skills if we are to close the digital skills gap that exists in the European workplace.

Education is key. In fact, 41% of the respondents to our survey suggested that promoting women’s participation in STEM degrees would have a big impact on the labor market. Yet today there is an alarming shortage of women studying ICT-related subjects at European universities. Only 24 out of every 1,000 female graduates across Europe, or just under 3% of women, have a computing or a related ICT degree. Furthermore, the average woman in the world today is less likely than the average man to be online, more likely to have low or no digital skills, and at greater risk of being socially and economically excluded by the digital disruption underway[1].

Getting more women into STEM occupations would translate into greater gender equality in digital product development and better economic prospects for women and their families. In addition, getting more women online will help to spread educational resources, support women-led small businesses to grow, and ensure that globalization through online communication benefits everyone, regardless of gender.

Technology on the educational agenda

To realize the full potential of the digital transformation, countries and companies need to coordinate their efforts to promote STEM education by operating as one united force across Europe. For EU countries, this means improving their education systems in order to make them fit for purpose in the fast-paced, dynamic environment of the 21st century. These education systems should equip young people in Europe with the critical skills that they need to embrace and thrive in an era of digital transformation. They should also provide for the reskilling and upskilling of experienced workers.

Currently, education systems still differ greatly between the European countries. This is not helping us to close either the gender or the digital skills gap. So Europe could look to develop a common education system that starts to prepare our children for the jobs of tomorrow and ensures that Europe remains a key player in the digital revolution. It must also promote diversity as a critical component of successful digital transformation and highlight how that diversity can be used to drive initiatives that will improve growth and the prospects of the next generation.

European organizations, meanwhile, should recognize that people are increasingly embracing lifelong learning and looking to work for employers that enable them to learn and develop digital skills. They also need to put a people strategy at the heart of their transformation strategy if they are to thrive in the digital age. Our research highlights a lack of awareness in this area since it found that 43% of organizations do not even have a people strategy as part of their digital transformation agenda. A people strategy should include a plan for creating a diverse and inclusive workforce encompassing both women and men, people from different cultural and racial backgrounds, people with different abilities and skills, and people with different sexual orientations.

Unfortunately, Europe’s talent shortage is highly unlikely to go away on its own. That’s why European leaders must take action to help close the gender gap and lay the foundations for an education system that enables more people to pursue STEM careers and acquire the valuable digital skills that will be demanded by the market in future. Alongside education, they should focus on developing diverse talent pipelines since we know that role models are key to creating a more diverse future workforce. If we do nothing – if we don’t proactively fix the gender bug before it affects the whole system – then we face some major risks. We could embark on a one-tracked digital future, miss out on potential innovation opportunities and create yet another gender gap for the next generation to undo.

[1] International Telecommunication Union, https://news.itu.int/reshaping-future-women-girls-icts/

What’s possible in the Transformative Age? Join EY to discuss this and all the pressing economic and social issues as we look to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2019 – from 22-25 January. Join the debate via ey.com/wef and using #WEF19 and #BetterWorkingWorld.