Study "The Future of Work & Skills in Greece" 2024-2030
The Special Secretariat for Long-Term Planning has published a study on the future of work and skills in Greece by 2030. The study was conducted by dr. John Thanos and Dr. Ilias Kapoutsis,Associate Professors in the Department of Business Administration, Athens University of Economics and Business.
The survey is the first comprehensive study on the future of work and skills in Greece, following the methodology of the World Economic Forum and carried out with the participation of 256 senior and senior executives from various sectors and business sizes, the survey provides an in-depth analysis of the challenges and opportunities that the Greek labour market is expected to face by 2030.
Main conclusions
External environment trends: In Greece, the trends that are expected to lead to business transformation in the future are (in order of importance):
- Increased adoption of new and innovative technologies
- Widening digital access
- Wider implementation of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) standards
- Investments to facilitate the green transition
- Government regulations on the use of data and technology
- Investments for adaptation to climate change
- Ageing population
Technological adoption: More than 80% of businesses are expected to adopt in the future:
- Digital platforms and applications
- Education and workforce development technologies
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Cloud computing technologies
- Analysis of Big Data (Big Data)
These new technologies are expected to create more jobs than they will eliminate, leading to a positive job balance.
Artificial intelligence: Artificial intelligence is expected to be adopted by 90% of businesses in Greece. Small businesses rank it as the first technology to be adopted, while medium and large ones rank it as the third and second, respectively.
Future skills: The ten most important skills that employees should have in the future are:
- Resilience, flexibility and agility
- Empathy and active listening
- Communication
- Manage people
- Analytical thinking
- Creativity
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data
- Curiosity and a lifelong learning mindset
- Technological education
- Service orientation and customer service
Eight of these ten skills are soft skills and two are related to technology.
Training needs: By 2030, 62% of workers will need additional education and training to meet evolving skills requirements.
Current training programmes: Existing training and education programmes focus on the following skills:
- Use, monitoring and control of technology
- Service orientation and service
- Analytical thinking
- Responsible use of artificial intelligence
- Emotional intelligence
There is a relative mismatch between future skills needs and the skills that current training programmes focus on.
Adequacy of skills:
- 62% of the population have adequate digital skills
- 38% of companies find it difficult to find staff with the required skills
- Only 50% of secondary school graduates have the required skills
Government intervention: Around half of the sampled companies see government funding of training programmes as an effective intervention to reduce the skills gap in the labour market.
Policy proposals
The researchers make policy proposals in three directions:
- Education and Training in soft/horizontal, green, digital and technological skills
- Investing in artificial intelligence and technology infrastructure
- Addressing the demographic problem and moving from brain drain to brain gain.
Find and read the full study on the website of the Special Secretariat for Long-Term Planning at the following link:
