Greece’s Manpower Organization (OAED) has signed a memorandum of cooperation with US tech giant Amazon’s Web Services branch to hone the digital skills of the nation’s unemployed people.
As part of Greece’s National Alliance for Digital Skills and Employment program, the two parties will take joint action for bridging the digital gap in the domestic labor market, with emphasis on skills development in cloud service technologies.
Through this new initiative, the OAED is expanding its scope of collaboration with international technology innovation companies — having previously worked with Google — marking the growing significance now placed on the acquisition of digital skills.
Amazon’s actions to support labor market in Greece
“Greece’s biggest competitive advantage in the digital economy is its quality workforce, which is why we do our best to invest in it,” said the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Kostis Haztidakis, during the digital launch event for the memorandum.
The debut joint action of OAED and Amazon Web Services will operate as a pilot on the free training of the unemployed in digital cloud technologies (cloud services) through modern and asynchronous education.
The training will lead to corresponding certifications from Amazon Web Services, a world leader in the development of cloud computing services, and the acquisition of skills that are in great demand by companies in Greece.
In addition, Amazon Web Services will provide support to OAED’s digital transformation efforts and its use of digital cloud services.
Earlier this year, Amazon opened a CloudFront location in Athens, as part of the conglomerate’s ongoing investment in the country.
Amazon had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Greece’s Ministry of Digital Governance in 2020.
Greece is last in skills-matching among EU countries
Speaking at the digital workshop “Rebels Unread,” organized by the Hellenic American Union in Athens the previous day, Minister Hatzidakis pointed out that Greece holds a negative record of ranking last in skills-matching in the labor market among all the 27 countries of the EU.
“This is not a source of pride for anyone,” the Minister admits. “This negative performance, combined with the fourth Industrial Revolution, underscores that we need to act faster. We do not want to make plans on paper, but a change that counts and leads us forward; a reform with a modern European footprint”, he added.
Toward this end, the Ministry of Labor will not only intensify its cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Greek universities, but will also employ new mechanisms for the evaluation of both the attendees and the providers of the training programs that it offers.
As EU-funded training programs worth 300 million euros line up for launch in Greece from September, the funding of the training providers will be henceforth linked to the efficiency of their services.
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