Abstract:

The technological revolution first and then the digital one have upset the relationship between man and work. The Internet of things, cloud manufacturing, artificial intelligence and robotics are contaminating traditional working, pervading new and old professions. Digitalisation has enormous potential to increase productivity and improve well-being; however, it can also increase inequalities if some people or regions are left behind (OECD, 2019).

During the last five years an institutional debate has been started on the correlation between digital technologies – works and role of active labour policies. In this framework of labour market and profession’s transformation, scholars and policy makers believe that the active policies play a strategical role to support the ongoing transition. A proper planning and implementation of policies would allow to facilitate the meeting between jobs and technologies and to counteract the effects of technological unemployment.

Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic consequences are contributing to speed up some conversions already underway in the processes of digitalisation in some production areas. Overall, this means an additional and incremental requirement of digital skills, new professions, but also it means a necessary reconversion of previous jobs and professions. According to a recent study, in Italy companies will need 1.5 million employees with digital skills between 2020 and 2024, equivalent to 56% of the expected employment needs for the five-year period.

At the beginning of disease technologies, digital tools and smart working have made it possible to avoid the collapse of core activities for our economies. In Italy, companies with integrated digitalization plans have resisted to the blows of the crisis and have better prospects of survival and evolution.

The prediction studies on digitalisation impact carried out before the epidemic and those about the professional needs oblige us to reflect further on the retraining of professions. Therefore, it is necessary to understand how new types of learning and active labour policies implemented can respond adequately to the new needs of digital skills required by the new scenarios.

Because of the increasingly rapid technological innovations, active labour market policies will have to take more action on workers' skills. Therefore, appropriate measures for the qualification and retraining of the workforce will have to be implemented to cope with the production’s transformation of goods and services that the pandemic crisis has further helped to accelerate.

Firstly, in this paper we will illustrate the main evidences of international studies about the digitalization impact on the labour market trough a panoramic of the relationship between digital-competences and professions. Subsequently, we will focus on the acceleration due to the crisis following the Covid 19 that invested the process of digitalization and the consequent effects on the professional needs of companies.

Finally, we will analyse the role of labour active policies in this new context to understand the actual perimeters of action. The paper purpose is also to identify innovative training tools, implemented through the partnership between public institutions and private body, in order to comprehend how they can respond to the new professional needs

Keywords:

Digitalisation, professional needs, active labour policies, upskilling, reskilling.