At the EURATEX General Assembly, international experts present the challenges and possible solutions to tackle the issue of attracting young and skilled workforce in the textile and clothing sector.

Although the industry is witnessing a period of positive evolution – since 2012 turnover has grown by 10% to € 178 billion, extra-EU exports are up by 23% and have reached 50 billion Euros for the first time, and labour productivity has grown an impressive 22% - it still faces significant challenges, the biggest one being the difficulty of recruiting  and retaining skilled workforce.

In the opening session of the event, newly-elected EURATEX President Alberto Paccanelli stressed that “companies hiring today not only look for young people with the same skill sets as the retiring workforce, but also new talent with creative, highly technical and digital skills for high added value jobs in design, product development, technical textile production, digitalization, sustainability and circular economy.”

The Director for Skills of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Manuela Geleng, gave an overview of the policies and programmes being developed by the EU to support upskilling and training of workforce. She reminded the audience that EU countries on average spend 4.6% of GDP on initial education, but only 0.1% on continuous life-long learning, which is very ill adapted to today’s fast changing work environments and skill needs.