by the Employers' Group
The Employers’ Group, together with major Bulgarian employers’ associations, is holding a conference in Sofia, Bulgaria on 22 March entitled Bridging the skills gap for growth and job creation – a business perspective. The panellists will share best practices and discuss tangible solutions for addressing the skills gap. The event is part of the calendar of the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
What are the reasons for the current skills mismatches? How can we promote the right skills, needed in the knowledge-based economy? How can education systems be adapted to modern challenges? What kind of reforms are needed? What should be done at European and national level? These are just a few of the questions that the conference participants will attempt to answer. The conference will bring together speakers from national and European employers' organisations, the Bulgarian government and parliament and EU agencies.
The skills gap is a growing challenge for European companies. Employees with relevant skills are key to companies' competitiveness. Forty percent of employers have difficulty finding people with the skills they need to grow and innovate. At the same time, 70 million Europeans lack proper reading and writing skills and even more have poor numeracy and digital skills. (lj)