Skills4Retail project aiming to accelerate the ‘Triple Transition’
Skills4Retail is a new Europe-wide initiative European Commission Erasmus and Partnerships For Innovation. It is led by an international Consortium of 29 Partners, including higher education institutions, training providers, retail industry partners, recruitment and digital marketing.
The Skills4Retail project aims to accelerate the ‘Triple Transition’ — green, digital and resilience — in the retail and wholesale sectors across Europe. It contributes to achieving these goals through a new market and industry-led retail skills strategy and vocational education and training (VET) programme that addresses the growing skills gap in these critical areas.
Post-Covid-19, the skills gap in green, digital and resilience in retail and wholesale has become more profound, and demand cannot be met by existing education and training programmes.
Skills4Retail will train fresh new talent for the sector, through training programmes in VET schools and higher education institutions, and reskill the existing and future workforce via work-based learning and short-term modular courses.
The Skills4Retail programme aims to bridge the skills gap and support growth and sustainability in the retail and wholesale sectors, through direct and valuable collaboration between policymakers, businesses, and educators.
Junior Achievement Europe — a member of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize-nominated JA Worldwide — is coordinating the consortium of Skills4Retail partners, with eight national JA organisations involved in the project.
JA CEO Salvatore Nigro said of the initiative:
“There is a tremendous skills gap between what is today offered by the education sector and what is needed by the private sector. Our joint project will accelerate the triple transition for a more digital, green and resilient Europe with a focus on the retail sector.”
Deputy CEO and Chief Development Officer Diana Filip added:
“At JA Europe, we're proud to be at the forefront of designing a retail skills strategy and VET training programme that equips the current and future workforce with skills to thrive in the evolving retail industry. Together with our partners, we're forging a sustainable, digitally empowered future for the entire sector.”
Christel Delberghe, Director General of EuroCommerce, the European association representing retailers and wholesalers, highlighted: “In retail and wholesale, more than 40% of companies see difficulties in finding talent with the right skills as a top barrier to a successful sector transformation. Skills4Retail is a chance to support the future competitiveness of the sector. This project will develop a retail skills strategy and a vocational education training programme with the potential to empower both existing and prospective employees to meet the demands of an ever-changing market.”
More information available HERE.
