Research: Digital and Green Skills Needs of Greek Enterprises and Operators

The Mechanism of Labour Market Need Diagnosis (LMAE) of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security conducted the survey on "Digital and Green Skills Needs of Enterprises and Organisations" in the context of the project "Upgrading capabilities and extending the operation of the National Labour Market Needs Diagnosis Mechanism for the period 2021-2023". The research was carried out by the association of companies "REAL CONSULTING SA - PricewaterhouseCoopers Business Solutions SA", with scientific director Dr. It's Vaio Cozzio.

The survey was carried out between 23-5-2023 and 30-4-2024 and focused on the digital and green skills needs of businesses in various sectors. The survey involved 3,131 enterprises, with comprehensive responses The choice of digital skills was based on the Digital Competence Framework for Citizens (DigComp) 2.2 (Greek version of DigiComp 2.2).

The survey examines the importance andadequacy of individual digital skills for businesses using a scale of 0 – 10 and assesses the mismatch between these two figures, calculating their difference. These figures were estimated for companies by sector for 13 distinct sectors.

Important conclusions on digital skills

56.21% of companies surveyed said their staff is highly proficient in digital skills, 33.50% average, and 9.23% low proficiency. The companies with the highest proficiency of staff in digital skills belong to the sectors Information communication, Professional, scientific and technical activities and Administrative and support activities with percentages of 85.56%, 82.13% and 71.43% respectively. It should be noted that the information communication sector also includes computer programming businesses. In contrast to enterprises in Manufacturing, Construction and Wholesale and retail trade, repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles, the percentage of staff with high proficiency in digital skills is lower than the average.

Figure 1: Level of proficiency in digital skills by sector (data available in Greek).

Significance of digital skills

Looking at the importance of digital skills, the majority of them are considered important. However, some have been judged as too important and others as less important. At the top of the list are digital skills:

Protection of ICT devices
Data, information and digital content management
Digital identity management
Protection of corporate reputation on the Internet
Technical problem solving

On the other hand, the last places on the list are:

Skills Computer programming,
Ability to analyze data.

Figure 2: Importance of digital skills across businesses (data available in Greek).

Adequacy of digital skills

The digital skills in which the staff of the companies that took part in the survey are more proficient are in order:

Data, information and digital content management
Protecting health and well-being at work with digital technologies
Protection of ICT devices

On the contrary, the lowest proficiency appears in digital skills:

Computer programming
Ability to analyse data
Creative use of digital technologies

Figure 3: Adequacy of digital skills across businesses (data available in Greek).

Digital skills materiality and adequacy mismatch

Analyzing the data to calculate the mismatch per digital skill, it emerges that two of the skills that occupy one of the top four places on the materiality list also occupy the first places on the mismatch list:

Protection of ICT devices,
Solving technical problems.

The third in the ranking of the mismatch list is "Computer programming", and the last in the ranking of significance. This suggests a significant lack of computer programming skills in a small market for these skills.

Other skills that showed a high mismatch are:

Diagnosing needs and selecting digital tools to address them;
Creative use of digital technologies and Digital Identity Management,
Protecting corporate reputation online.

The digital skills with the least mismatch are:

Participation in social activities using online services,
Protecting health and well-being at work with digital technologies;
Search, search and filter data, information and digital content.

The analysis confirms for the second time the results of the same survey carried out by the MDAE in the 1st half of 2023. Mismatches are sectorally differentiated.