Productivity . That is one of the keys to progress . And that is one of the pending subjects of the Spanish economy, as the president of CaixaBank, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri , the president of the Spanish Chamber, José Luis Bonet , has agreed to highlight ; and the Secretary of State for Digitization, Carme Artigas, during the debate on the challenges of the Spanish economy in the framework of the Cercle d’Economia Meeting , which ended this Friday in Barcelona.
In this sense, in Goirigolzarri’s opinion it is necessary to make an “extraordinary” effort so that education and trainingincorporate the new skills that the economy requires to fight unemployment, advance productivity and achieve social cohesion .
The Chairman of CaixaBank recalled that we now have the most prepared youth in the history of Spain, which is in contrast to the fact that 30% of people have not finished secondary education .
For this reason, he considers it essential to work so that the entire population incorporates digitization skills , because there is an “asynchrony” between the demand and supply of work, which, in addition, will serve to fight against inequality , since 80% of the itself has its origin in unemployment.
It has opted for making a great effort in education and training to incorporate permanent skills of the entire population to achieve the “great challenge” of social cohesion. The Chairman of CaixaBank has set as a key element in which companies must be involved ” dual training”, which requires a certain size, which is why the Spanish productive fabric with such small companies “makes it difficult.
Carme Artigas has highlighted that 86% of Spanish companies lacked digital transformation plans before the pandemic, while 20% have joined after. Artigas believes that many changes brought about by the pandemic have come “to stay” and that a much more ” resilient green and digital” production model should be advocated , “we have the opportunity to make significant changes and come out better prepared.”
In this sense, he has ensured that now 19% of Spanish GDP is digital and that, in five years, this percentage has risen to 40%, since the economy will be increasingly linked to data or sectors such as the artificial intelligence. According to Artigas, we must take advantage of the great opportunity that technology represents for growth and employment.
For his part, the president of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce has stated that Spain should have the internationalization of companies as a “priority” objective. In Bonet’s opinion, the challenges of transforming the Spanish productive fabric also involve entrepreneurship, digitization, sustainability and professional training.
He has considered that public-private collaboration is a “necessity” for administrations and institutions to accompany companies in these challenges, especially in internationalization, and has pointed out that European funds are an opportunity for this transformation.
In addition, he alluded to the Strategic Projects for Economic Recovery and Transformation ( Pertes ): “They will work, but we risk the future in the structure of SMEs.” Bonet has warned that in Spain there are 6 million homes where no one works and that they need a “social shield”, which is to promote and facilitate entrepreneurship, he said.
He has also defended betting on those people over 45 years of age or young people who have become unemployed, so that they can access and be part of the transformation of the productive fabric, and has asked to be accompanied in their “recycling”.
