EU TEXTILE CLOTHING & FOOTWEAR (TCLF) SKILLS COUNCIL: ANALYSIS OF EMERGING OCCUPATIONS IN A DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT

EURATEX, COTANCE, CEC and INDUSTRIALL Europe, the recognised European social partners in the Textile, Clothing, Leather and Footwear (TCLF) sectors, together with the support of SPIN360, have implemented the Digital TCLF project with the aim to concretely respond to the existing digital skills gap in the TCLF sectors and the needs for skills development in one of the areas where the change in future is expected to have the greater impact: digitalisation of the skills related to industrial production in TCLF. A previous study carried out under the TCLF Sector Skills Council in 2014 had identified 13 new occupations emerging within the sector. In view of the rapid digital transformation since 2014, project partner activities initially concentrated in analysing and confirming with the support of sector experts the opportunity and validity of such occupations before inviting the industry for their validation. Once the names and conceptualisation of the occupations were finetuned, the partners worked on the characterisation of the profile of the 9-emerging digital occupations and the correspondent required skills sets, included digital skills, by the creation of a single and harmonized matrix, using the European skills/competences, qualifications and occupations (ESCO) format. A first extensive forecasting survey on digital skills in the industry was carried out in order to forecast the future demand of these occupations. Likewise, a second research analysed the current VET curricula and training offer in Europe by conducting a survey among almost 50 education providers and in-depth interviews with another 15 institutions from 12 EU countries.As the concluding outcome of Digital TCLF and elaborating on all the results achieved in the previous stages of the project, partners present a roadmap proposal aiming to guide the TCLF stakeholders involved at the EU and national level on the priority actions to be taken in order to address the 9 emerging digital(ised) occupations and the 19 related digital skills that the project has identified.All these conclusions and the results have been disseminated by the consortium through the updates on the project website, the publication of 4 newsletters sent to the relevant stakeholders and the Final Event of the project held in Brussels.