The employers of large European companies meet in Madrid to promote 'reskilling'

MADRID, 5 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), the employers' association of large companies in Europe, meets this week at the Telefónica Innovation and Talent Hub in Madrid to discuss ways to promote the retraining of workers, popularly known as 'reskilling' .

The executive president of Telefónica and president of the ERT Employability, Skills and Impact Committee, José María Álvarez-Pallete, highlighted in a statement that this is the first face-to-face meeting of the group with experts and interested parties.

The event brings together the most relevant experts from various countries, as well as representatives of the ERT Secretariat and McKinsey

"Digital training and skills are the backbone to overcome social gaps and, therefore, reskilling is one of the most important challenges facing Europe today. We have a unique opportunity to transform the profiles of European citizens and guarantee current and future capacities", Álvarez Pallete underlined.

The Reskilling 4 Employment (R4E) program seeks to transform the human resources of companies to adapt to digital transformation and the automation of many jobs.

The objective of the program is to promote the retraining of five million people by 2030. Currently, it has pilots in Portugal, Spain and Sweden, where ERT member companies such as Telefónica and Iberdrola, public and private entities, are collaborating.

The R4E initiative is adapted to each participating country through a specific website, translated into the relevant language, which serves so that unemployed and at-risk workers can have the opportunity to acquire new skills and change career paths.

"The project is tremendously ambitious, we are going to increase the number of current countries where R4E is already launched and we are actively working on expanding to new ones", assured the president of Telefónica.