Digital training – an election campaign issue. Digitalization of the economy is well and truly at the center of German political action and debate. Conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel does not pass up any opportunity to refer to the issue. Back in mid-2014 the Social-Democrat Minister for Employment and Social Affairs also launched a ‘national debate’ on the future of work in the digital era, a debate that resulted in a Green Paper being published in April 2015 (c.f. article No. 9039), which was followed by a ‘White Paper on Work 4.0’ published in November 2016 (c.f. article No. 9945) that notably included a proposal to loosen the law on working time for a two-year trial period and to significantly augment both the provision of and the funding for continuous training.
Germany: the German economy is adapting its professions to meet the digital age
In Germany, the digitalization of the economy has become a nationwide issue and is now sitting high up on the agendas of the social partners, the political parties and businesses alike. Following the publication of the Green and White Papers on the topic, which places employee training at the center of the process, the political parties, by now all in full election mode, are putting forward a proposal for State-funded continuous training and the establishment of national bodies to manage the transition process towards digitalization, as well as ‘lifelong learning’. Other processes have also been launched including an overhaul of apprenticeship and continuous training courses, set to start in the summer of 2018, and in this vein the metals sector social partners have just presented a series of concrete methodological proposals which demonstrate that although the task ahead is significant, not all professions will need to be re-invented.
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