While it is true that Spain is ranked 11th in the overall ranking of the 28 countries of the European Union in the recently published "Index of the Digital Economy and Society (DESI) – 2019", we are ranked 17th in terms of the qualification of our human capital, below the European average. Almost half of the Spanish population still lacks digital skills, which undoubtedly implies a high risk of exclusion in an increasingly digital work context.
Given this, the Telefónica Foundation and the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) will promote the digitalization of the Spanish productive sector through "Conecta Empleo", the digital training program of the Foundation that connects its participants with the country's technology companies . The first "nanograde" will be on "Construction 4.0".
The objective of both institutions is to launch a joint training program that can contribute to the training of workers in the different productive sectors of Spain, through online content in a "nanograde" format. So, the collaboration agreement signed this morning by the general director of Fundación Telefónica, Carmen Morenés, and the general secretary of the CEOE, José Alberto González-Ruiz, in an event that was attended by the president of Fundación Telefónica, César Alierta, and the president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi.
Fundación Telefónica, through its "Connect Employment" program, which connects its participants with technology companies through digital training, will monitor the evolution of students and the development of the training action, while CEOE will lead the coordination with those companies, business organizations, organizations and entities of the different productive sectors of Spain that are interested in being part of the program.
According to the report made by the Cotec Foundation, Digital reinvention: an opportunity for Spain (2017), the sector with the lowest digitization index is that of construction. And in the field of productive sectors, those in construction, agriculture and transport and logistics are those that most need to digitize.
The potential of the sector in Spain, according to experts, is very large. In construction, material innovation, home automation and energy efficiency play a very important role. For its part, the agricultural sector of our country has a great technical potential for automation. And also the Spanish transport and logistics companies have a serious deficit in terms of digitizing the management of their businesses.
The project responds to a real demand of the current labor market with a "nanograde" of the construction sector. According to the latest INE Innovation Survey (2015), of all the expenditure on innovation made by Spanish companies, only 1.1% comes from construction, a sector that reaches about 800,000 employees and 350,000 self-employed workers, according to the CEOE.
This first "nanograde" – flexible and modular – will offer 270 hours of online training of a transversal nature common to any sector through the existing "Connecta Empleo" MOOC, specific online training in the "4.0 construction" sector and a continuous evaluation through several partial exams corresponding to both modules and a final face-to-face examination that will enable the participant to obtain a diploma.
Fundación Telefónica, the social side of the digital era
Fundación Telefónica has been working since 1998 to be a catalyst for social inclusion in the digital era, mobilizing other social agents to join forces and promote transformation. With this vision, it seeks to improve the development opportunities of people, through educational, social and cultural projects.
It works in 4 strategic lines: Education, betting on its quality as a vehicle for social transformation, exploring, inspiring and transforming teaching models to end the educational gap; Employability, helping people find job opportunities and training in the most demanded technological profiles; Digital Culture, creating and sharing cultural and technological knowledge through different initiatives related to science, innovation, art and learning STEAM; Y Corporative volunteering, mobilizing through Volunteers Telefónica to our employees, present in 32 countries, to carry out solidarity actions that respond to social needs.
CEOE, "Digital Plan 2025"
CEOE has prepared a roadmap to significantly improve the positioning in the digital field of our country in the international context that has been called "Digital Plan 2025", In which it incorporates more than 280 concrete proposals and which is based on three basic pillars: education, entrepreneurship and innovation.
Furthermore, given its absolutely transversal nature, the Plan covers all sectors and all parties involved: citizens, Business Y Public administrations. If the measures proposed in this Plan are carried out, the degree of digitalization of Spanish society would increase by 10%, which would imply an increase in Spanish GDP of 3.2 additional percentage points in the year 2025, that is, they would be added 35,000 million euros to the GDP of that year.
Regarding employment, the application of these proposals would increase the employment rate by 1.3%, which would result in the generation of 250,000 additional jobs in the year 2025, always taking into account the new employment generated and the one hypothetically it would be destroyed by robotization and the implantation of new technologies.