Abstract:

It is widely acknowledged that there is an ever-increasing shift in labor demand and workforce skills that will be required for future jobs. Considering the impact of sustainability as a key driver for the value propositions of current and future enterprises, Higher Education institutions put an increased effort into adapting their curricula for the expected skillset required for current and future work opportunities related to sustainability challenges. In this context, an innovation agreement was recently signed in Portugal among more than 60 companies and related stakeholders to promote dedicated research, development, manufacturing, and commercialization of more environmentally friendly, digitally advanced, and inclusive packaging solutions. One of the project's work packages is to qualify human resources to provide current and future professionals in this field with the specialized technical skills they need to overcome the challenges of this industry. To such an end, this paper aims at developing and discussing a dedicated framework that will contribute to identifying the required set of skills to qualify the current and future workforce by promoting an upgrade to higher value-added and knowledge-intensive activities oriented towards the sustainable packaging markets.

Keywords:

Future of jobs, Workforce Qualification, Skillset Realignment, Sustainable Packaging, Innovation Agreement.