STRATEGY FOR THE INFORMATION SOCIETY DEVELOPMENT 2020.
in Luxembourg, the Nordic countries, the Netherlands and the United
Kingdom, where this percentage is
around 90% and more. On the other
hand, the countries with the lowest
rate of the Internet use during the
week (Romania, Bulgaria) are facing
the fact that about half of their population does not use the Internet during the week. The percentage of the
citizens who do not use the Internet
at the EU level is around 18%. The
greatest progress in reducing this
number was recorded in Estonia,
Bulgaria, Poland, Cyprus and Lithuania.
The greatest obstacles to the Internet access are the lack of need, the
insufficient level of the digital skills
and costs. In the recent years, a lack
of digital skills has been noted as a
factor that affects the Internet use to
a large extent. In 2014, 40% of the
EU population did not have a sufficient level of the digital skills, while
22% of the population did not have
the digital skills at all. The last figure
varies - from 5% in Luxembourg to
45% in Bulgaria and 46% and Romania. In eight countries (Portugal,
Poland, Croatia, Cyprus, Italy, Spain,
Bulgaria, Romania) about 30% and
more of the population does not
have the digital skills at all. In Italy,
even 18 million people do not have
digital skills.
In 2014, 32% of the EU workforce
did not have a sufficient level of the
digital skills, while 13% did not have
the digital skills at all. While in some
countries, such as Poland, Italy,
Cyprus, the rates of the workforce
having digital skills are around 20%
and more, in Romania and Bulgaria
more than a third of the workforce
does not have the digital skills. If
this percentage is added to the percent of the workforce who has only a
low level of digital skills, we come to
an average of 32% of the workforce
that can be considered insufficiently
digitally literate, at the EU level. In
Bulgaria and Romania, this percentage is 61% and 77%, accounting for
the majority of the workforce.
As for the employment of the ICT
experts, this percentage is increased
by 4% over the last decade in the
EU. The largest increase occurred
in Germany, the United Kingdom,
France. However, it was significant
in smaller countries also.
Despite this, the EU is faced with
the problem of the growing deficit
of the ICT experts, which is projected to be as high as 825,000 vacant
jobs by 2020. Currently the largest
gap between supply and demand of
the ICT experts in the labor market
was noted in Germany. However, it is
anticipated that this gap will be growing in the United Kingdom and in
Italy, largely due to the inadequate
number of the ICT graduates.