The latest Euronews Real Economy episode is dedicated to the European Year of Skills. It sheds light on why we need it and how it will help addressing Europe’s labour market shortages.

In this episode, Euronews travels to Odense, Denmark and meets NextGen Robotics - a group of companies developing the robots of the future. ‘We will need 200 000 robotics engineers by 2025. Our university can provide only 200 per year, so we will quickly run short’, says Kaspar Aagaard, Director of Innovation, Business Region Fyn, who coordinates the NextGen Robotics consortium and points out: ‘Our strategic forum has identified skilled labour as the number one challenge’.

Euronews speaks to engineers and specialists from NextGen Robotics, who have developed new skills and to an Iranian PhD student, who has a professional future in Odense, to illustrate how the consortium invests in training and skills enhancement with the support of European funds, and how it attracts talent from abroad.

The crash course of the episode sets out the objectives of the European Year of Skills and the role of the Pact for Skills, which offers 10 million upskilling and reskilling opportunities for Europeans.

In an interview for the episode, the European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit describes the European Year of Skills as ‘an important rendezvous that Europe has with its economic future, with the major transformations that are taking place, whether they are digital or green’. He highlights that a budget of €65 billion from the European Social Fund Plus and the Recovery and Resilience Facility is dedicated to training and can bring tangible results for people under the European Skills Agenda.