On June 30th the the employment committee of the European parliament, collaboratively with organisations Eurofound, EU-OSHA, Cedefop, ETF hosted a seminar which posed the question, “What is Europe doing for youth employment?”.

With the opportunity, EHA was present and took the opportunity to ask the panel of speakers of the EU’s plans to address the changing demands in the new innovative job markets. Employment of European Youth also deals with as mentioned the concept of employability, thus having the skills needed for the job market. As electric transport and infrastructure are developed in Europe, specialists in Hydrogen infrastructure and fuel cell installations will be needed to fulfill demand in human capital thus, training our youth in such technologies can play a key role in preparing them for future job demands.

“How is the EU preparing today for the jobs of tomorrow?”  EHA took the opportunity to also introduced the European funded project, HyPROFESSIONALS, which aims to develop and disseminate training initiatives for technical professionals and to develop a well-trained work-force which will secure the required mid- and long-term availability of human resources for hydrogen technologies.

Director for Life Long Learning, horizontal policy issues and EU 2020 Strategy, Pierre Mairesse, responded to the question in expressing the difficulty in predetermining the optimal skills needed new sectors in the future job market, however the European Commission is proposing to put in place an initiative that will review European sectoral skills. this effort will be in collaboration with the European trade unions.

Overall we have seen that European projects, such as HyProfessionals, will play an integral role in presenting future labor market demands, and preparing the labor market for the challenges ahead in fulfilling them.