EU faces five million shortfall in 2030 digital jobs target
A new Eurofound report shows the EU will fall five million workers short of its 2030 ICT employment goal, exposing a reliance on foreign labour and a failure by companies to train staff.
The European Union is projected to miss its flagship Digital Decade goal of employing 20 million information and communications technology (ICT) specialists by 2030. A new Eurofound report estimates a shortfall of roughly five million workers. For a continent racing to build a sovereign digital economy, this deficit threatens to severely constrain business growth and technological independence.
The gap is particularly striking given the sector’s sustained momentum. Over the past decade, employment in ICT has expanded rapidly, growing by 7 to 8 percent annually. This contrasts sharply with the broader European economy, which saw employment grow by just over 1 percent during the same period.
Despite this booming demand, domestic supply chains for talent are breaking down. Eurofound concludes that European education and vocational training systems are failing to produce enough skilled workers. The private sector is also dropping the ball; in 2023, only around one in five EU companies provided ICT-specific training to their employees.
Unable to find or train local talent, European employers are increasingly relying on labour migration from outside the EU to keep vacancies filled. For investors, this reliance on external hiring introduces regulatory and operational risks, as immigration policies can shift rapidly and do not solve the long-term structural deficit.
Kevin Flynn, policy and communications adviser at Eurocadres, criticized the regulatory environment. “The results are not surprising in the slightest,” he said. He argued the data exposes a fundamental misalignment in Brussels. “It highlights the detachment from reality we see with this Commission’s political choices,” Flynn stated.
Flynn pointed to a systemic failure to create professional conditions that allow employees to upskill while staying in the industry. The broader workplace culture often works against this. Eurofound notes that almost 39.4 million workers across Europe are contacted for work-related reasons outside normal hours several times a month.
This erosion of work-life balance directly impacts the skills gap. When employees are consistently tethered to their jobs during off-hours, finding the capacity to learn new technologies becomes impossible. "Expecting workers to find the time and money to train themselves is unrealistic," Flynn said, warning that corporate inaction will continue to stall the bloc's digital ambitions.
