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CLEPA, together with its partners in EU-projects DRIVES and ALBATTS, presents a joint strategy to roll out a dedicated Pact for the sector

The EU automotive sector is calling for a strategy that supports the recovery prioritising the up/reskilling of the workforce to maximise the industry competitiveness, job retention, and creation of new employment opportunities. Bringing forward the need for a sectorial pact for skills, this proposal is the result of an exhaustive cooperation and examination effort through the DRIVES and ALBATTS projects, and of several representatives from the whole automotive value chain, presenting a solid roadmap towards the necessary skills-transformation for the sector.

The paper is conceived as a roadmap for the whole automotive ecosystem and is open to the contributions of other stakeholders. It includes a clear action plan for the automotive sector to support the ongoing transformation towards a carbon-neutral and digitalised society, while reinforcing a smart and effective recovery strategy coming out of the COVID-19 crisis. For this, the signatories call for an open public and private partnership to support the automotive ecosystem during its transformation, while moving forward thanks to the combination of public and private funding.

This proposal further broadens the outcomes of the DRIVES project, funded by Erasmus+, which provides key inputs to the future work of the partnership, such as initial ecosystem intelligence, skills mapping, basic principles of the EU skills Framework in the automotive sector or a dedicated database of industry players, education providers and other relevant stakeholders.

Furthermore, the initiative also builds upon the recent exchange during the High-Level Roundtable on skills for the Automotive Sector celebrated on 23 September, hosted by European Commissioners Nicolas Schmit, (Jobs and Social Rights) and Thierry Breton (Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs). The text contains input from the fruitful exchange of a wide representation of parties participating in this meeting, including industry, academia, trade unions and employers’ associations, participated by CLEPA Secretary General Sigrid de Vries. The discussion focused on the current challenges that the automotive industry is facing in terms of skills shortage and how to best support the shift towards low and zero-emission mobility and digitalisation/automation.

These issues, along with other topics relevant for the future of the automotive workforce, are described in this joint paper.