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European Commission Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs

With demand for skilled ICT workers exceeding supply, Europe could soon face a shortage of more than half a million ICT workers: potentially missing an opportunity to fight massive unemployment and risking its digital competitiveness. To respond to this challenge, the Commission launched the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs, an initiative aimed at increasing the overall supply of digitally skilled professionals and to better match supply and demand of digital skills.

Launched in March 2013 by President José Manuel Barroso, Vice-Presidents Neelie Kroes and Antonio Tajani, Commissioners Lí¡szlí³ Andor and Androulla Vassiliou, the first results of the Grand Coalition are encouraging: we have received more than 40 pledges so far, including from large companies such as Google, Telefonica, SAP, Microsoft and Cisco. Pledges have come in also from smaller companies, education providers and NGOs, while policy-makers all over Europe and the European Council have provided strong political support to the initiative.

The progress made in carrying out the individual pledges can be monitored via the online Pledge Tracker at:http://www.linkedpolicies.eu/pledge/

In addition, National Coalitions are being developed in more than 10 Member States with the aim of facilitating action at local level. For example, Lithuania and Poland have recently officially launched their national coalitions.

Taken from: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/grand-coalition-digital-jobs-0