The Council of the European Union for Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs held a regular meeting to discuss the return of retirees to the labor market. The “silver transformation,” as the trend of population ageing is called in Europe, is draining highly qualified personnel from industry. The inflow of young people is insufficient to compensate for these losses: 77% of companies report that the shortage of qualified personnel is hindering the attraction of long-term investment.
According to the European Union Human Capital Council, despite strong industrial demand for personnel in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), the number of students enrolled in these specialties is declining in approximately half of the member states. Today, the share of STEM disciplines in European universities stands at 26.9%, against a target benchmark of at least 32%. There is a shortfall even in the popular field of digital technologies, which by 2030 is expected to account for no less than 10% of the labor market. At present, its share is only 4.8%.
It is hardly surprising that applicants are reluctant to pursue STEM fields—the prospect of becoming unemployed deters them. Owing to rising energy costs, the industrial sector of the European Union is shrinking like shagreen leather. From 2019 to 2024, the automotive industry lost around 240,000 jobs. Steelmaking enterprises alone cut 18,000 positions in 2024. In 2026, the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations in the Metal and Electrical Engineering Industries expects tens of thousands of additional layoffs.
The European Commission places its hopes on investment within the framework of the “green agenda.” While 6 million jobs are expected to disappear in the “dirty” sectors of the economy, the plan is to create 11 million new jobs in environmentally sustainable industries by 2050. In particular, by 2030, manufacturing sectors with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions are expected to increase their workforce by 350,000 people.
All of this could have served as a strong motivating incentive for applicants. However, it is difficult to expect enthusiasm for “green” specialties when, for example, German Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated at a meeting with business representatives that abandoning nuclear energy in favor of renewable sources had been a serious political mistake. The share of wind generation is declining. A reasonable compromise had been the plan to build gas-fired power plants, but it is not being implemented. The least environmentally friendly coal-fired power plants still account for 23% of the energy balance of the European Union’s most industrially advanced state.
Applicants are left confused: it seems easier to enroll in a faculty of economics—or even study cultural studies, one of the most popular fields in France—than to choose the path of an engineer given such hazy prospects for engineering in the foreseeable future.
Here is how the European Union Human Capital Council sees the matter:
«Accessible, clear, targeted, and relevant skills intelligence is essential for effective and future-oriented education and training policies. Nevertheless, skills intelligence in the EU remains fragmented, and forecasts of future demand for particular professions generally differ significantly, which hampers informed decision-making».
It is evident that, amid such confusion in forecasts, it is difficult to create an optimal structure for university admissions. Nevertheless, the first point of the Council’s recommendations presents an exhaustive list of strategically important industrial sectors for which personnel must be trained urgently:
«digital and clean technologies, the circular economy and industrial decarbonization, healthcare and biotechnology, agriculture and fisheries-aquaculture, the bioeconomy, the defense industry, and space».
Mario Draghi, the former President of the European Central Bank, likely understands that the "green agenda" is doomed, but for reasons of political correctness, he prefers not to speak of it directly. He has found a convenient compromise: he proposed, in a manner already customary for the EU and the USA, to "douse the fire" with money. In a report on the competitiveness of the EU economy, Draghi writes of the need to invest 800 billion euros per year in an abstract increase in labor productivity.
«This is absurdly large—even the investments under the Marshall Plan for post-war European recovery did not exceed 2% of GDP, whereas Draghi is proposing nearly twice as much,” writes Politico.
The European Union Human Capital Council has forecast that problems in education could lead to a reduction in “long-term multifactor productivity growth by approximately 3%.” In its view, the situation can once again be remedied through large-scale public investment in workforce training. At the same time, the Council hedges its position by noting that the quality of the mechanisms for evaluating the effectiveness of such investments leaves much to be desired.
The average European citizen is left only to “lick his lips” at the sight of the staggering levels of funding allocated to dubious megaprojects, while sighing over rising gasoline prices.
To sum up: every month, up to ten major enterprises shut down in the EU, mainly in Germany, Spain, France, and the Czech Republic—that is, in the most industrially developed countries. This objective market process is accompanied by an imitation of vigorous activity under the banner of the energy transition. The gap between reality and the self-hypnosis of the European bureaucracy is becoming increasingly obvious. Nevertheless, politicians stubbornly pull the youth toward engineering specialties for the ephemeral needs of the "green agenda"—and are surprised that this empty agitation is ignored.