Cedefop’s EU skills and jobs survey has revealed that about 45% of EU adult workers believe that their skills can either be better developed or utilized at work. Better matching a country’s skill supply to the needs of its economy is a dynamic process that requires policies to increase education and training responsiveness to labor market needs. Mitigating skill mismatch in an era of fast-paced digitization and automation requires a well-developed skills anticipation infrastructure in countries and an integrative approach to skills governance.
The latest 2018 Cedefop projections imply that job growth is expected to be concentrated in business services (like real estate), and in education. Currently 7% of all EU workers are employed as business services professionals. There is recognition in the EU, of the need for education and training provision to respond to the labor market demand.
The project creates a role for real estate services (RES) stakeholders in the planning, design, delivery and evaluation of such provision. Still, the need to blend a more standardized work and consumer ethic, is not addressed along the European RES sector. The EU standards are more recommended, rather than institutionalized within the educational systems of the sector. The reasons can be sought within the lack of competence in the educational providers, leading to lack of skills in the sector employees and entrepreneurs.
The standard EN 15733:2010 Requirements for the provision of services of real estate agents is imposing recommendations towards the skills, competences, working ethics, conflict of interest among the real estate (RE) agents. In addition, the current requirements of the European property market are seeking expertise in management of co-working solutions, logistic support, and energy efficiency. The need for qualified staff in the field of property and facility management is opening a great demand to such expertise.
The diversity of RES occupations and skills requirements makes it necessary to look closer at VET. The concern is whether provision of the right kind of courses at VET level is sufficient to meet emerging needs. The fourth industrial revolution in technology has led to a huge growth in distant training. The project will offer VR distance learning as a way of learning remotely without being in regular face-to-face contact with a teacher. With the expansion of the internet and the recent AR/VR innovations, distant learning makes its breakthrough. This is a notable advantage for students with fewer opportunities.
