Developing e-skills for competitiveness, growth and employment in the 21st century: The European perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify e-skills shortages, gaps and mismatches in Europe, and the reasons behind these. In this light, the paper explores some key issues/aspects related to development of e-Skills, while attempting to provide some benchmarking tools by which European countries may be able to access their current and future challenges regarding e-Skills. Design/methodology/approach – The paper begins with an overview of the problem highlighted in the literature and then moves on to what has already been done to solve the problem in European countries. Several policy options are proposed which could be implemented to deal with the problems of shortages, gaps and mismatches of e-Skills. Findings – The paper presents recent developments in the field of e-Skills and highlights the various dimensions/aspects and issues of e-Skills in the European perspective and prescribes innovative policy options to solve the problems of e-Skills shortage/gap/mismatch in Europe. Practical implications – The paper presents a discussion and provides some policy options to solve the problems of e-Skills shortage/gap/mismatch in Europe, which will be helpful for policy-related discussions and in suitable policy formulations. Originality/value – The paper provides a detailed analysis of the issues related to e-Skill by a comprehensive survey of literature and the existing framework. It also prescribes some alternative ways to resolve the problems of e-Skills shortage/gap/mismatch in Europe.