Implementation period: 2020-09-01 - 2023-02-28
Type: International
Division: The Division of Strategic Research
The leader of the project is The Hellenic Society for Promotion of Research and Development Methodologies (PROMEA). Duration of project 01th September 2020-28 February 2023. The decarbonisation of the EU27 is expected to result in the loss of ~76k workers’ jobs in coal mines & plants until 2025 (154k until 2030). Partnership countries (GR, DE, AT, RO, BG,PL) will be particularly affected, currently representing 81% of the total EU coal workforce (190k). At the same time, a surge of jobs in the Renewable Energy Sources (RES) sector is already happening and expected to continue and perhaps grow. Due to similar skillset, coal workers are ideally fitted for covering unfilled positions in the RES sector. The skills of coal workers (e.g. durability in hazardous environments, employment of manual & sophisticated technologies) are sought after in the solar photovoltaic (PV) & wind industries, being particularly transferable to the occupations of solar PV installer/technician & wind-farm/wind turbine technician. Thus, coal workers can avoid the lengthy training (~2 years) currently on offer by existing VET courses, requiring only a short course or on-the-job training.
Reskilling initiatives for the transition of coal workers to the RES sector are currently extremely limited, with only 1 EU country offering relevant C-VET courses (DE; ~2,5 years degree). Job demand in the EU27 RES sector is growing by 304k new jobs/year until 2030 – 60% expected in wind & 24% in solar PV. In particular, the supply of new RES sector jobs in partnership countries could absorb up to 90% of current coal-related jobs.
