Symbiosis between the industry's competence needs, educational offers and students' VET educational choice

We live in a time of radical changes in Europe. The climate crisis, the war in Ukraine, energy crisis, the pandemic, increased
price levels and interest rates, digitalization, robotization, reduced birth rates, an aging population, migration, a declining
democracy index and increasing friction level between continents and powerful states makes us uncertain about tomorrow.
Deglobalization, shorter production lines, changed export models, bloc formations and sovereignty might be results of some
of the large challenges we see today. We see tendencies towards increasing poverty and a declining middle class. It is
perhaps more important than ever in recent times to show optimism on behalf of young people and future generations.
European cooperation and the link between the right skills for the right future seems to be more actual and important than
ever. A report from McKinsey Global Institute (2017) about future work life, competence development and digitalization,
shows that approximately 50 % of todays jobs can disappear in the nearest future caused digitalization, robotization and AI.
MGI’s in-dept report have covered more than 20 countries and 30 industries (mckinsey.com). We have also a common
European challenge reagarding too many youth outside the working life. The NEET index (Not in Employment, Education or
Training) was 14 % totally for the EU countries, 9.6 % for Germany, 6.3 % for Netherlands and also 6.3 % for Norway in
2021 (ssb.no).This is a challenge we have to solve as we need to increase the work participation as welfare costs will
increase as a consequence of more immigration and several older people.