Digital improvement in the EU but still big gender gap
There is still a substantial gender gap in specialist digital skills in the EU. Only 19% of ICT specialists and about one third of science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates are women, the EU Commission says in a report on digital development in the European Union.
56% of individuals in the EU have at least basic digital skills. The data shows a slight increase in ICT specialists in employment: in 2020, the EU had 8.4 million ICT specialists compared to 7.8 million a year earlier.
RECRUITING
“Given that 55% of enterprises reported difficulties in recruiting ICT specialists in 2020, this lack of employees with advanced digital skills is also a contributing factor towards the slower digital transformation of businesses in many Member States”, the Commission says.
“The data indicates a clear need to increase training offers and opportunities, in order to reach the targets in the Digital Decade for skills (80% of the population to have basic digital skills and 20 million ICT specialists).”
Significant improvements are expected in the coming years, partly because 17% of investments in digital in the Recovery and Resilience Plans that have so far been adopted by the European Council are dedicated to digital skills (approximately €20 billion out of a total €117 billion).
PROGRESS
The report says all member states have made progress in the area of digitalisation, but the overall picture across member states is mixed, and despite some convergence, the gap between the EU’s frontrunners and those with the lowest DESI (economy and society index) scores remains large.
Despite these improvements, all Member States will need to make concerted efforts to meet the 2030 targets as set out in Europe’s Digital Decade, the Commission states.
HIGH-CAPACITY
Very high-capacity networks are available in 59% of the households in the EU, up from 50% a year ago, but still far from universal coverage of Gigabit networks (the digital decade target for 2030). The rural coverage of very high-capacity networks went up from 22% in 2019 to 28% in 2020.
25 Member States have assigned some 5G spectrum, compared to 16 one year ago. 5G has been launched commercially in 13 Member States, mainly covering urban areas.
There has been a large increase in usage of cloud technologies (from 16% of companies in 2018 to 26% in 2020). Large enterprises continue to lead the way in the usage of digital technologies.
There is no major improvement in e-government services. During the first year of the pandemic, member states created or enhanced digital platforms to provide more services online. 37% of investments in digital in the Recovery and Resilience Plans that have been adopted by the European Council are dedicated to digital public services, so the Commission expects significant improvements in the coming years.
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