Throughout history, we observe that jobs, and the relevant skills and competencies needed for performing them, have been transforming in response to shifting economic models and technological advancements. This creates a demand for new or altered sets of skills, while leaving others redundant. These processes are everlasting, yet at specific times of great technological leaps, the pressure to enable the supply of specific skills seems more urgent than before.
This is especially true in the industrial (capitalist) contexts, where large percentage of the population works towards meeting the demands of a particular branch of industry. For example, with the recent major advancement in AI technology and robotics, many pressing questions have reopened: Will advanced automation further decrease the need for human-powered labour? How will AI affect jobs in the industrial contexts? Which skills and competencies will become obsolete and which ones will be in high demand?
In this context, the ongoing rise in demands for advanced technical skills might seem obvious, but research and industry actors are now pointing to another set of, perhaps not such obvious skills, which might surpass the demand for hard (tech) skills in the future – the soft skills.
Soft skills: what are they and why are they increasingly important?
There is currently a lot of curiosity and disagreement on what constitutes soft skills. They tend to appear under other related concepts such as human skills, social skills, 21st century skills, and transversal skills. There are also many definitions, and various attempts to create more comprehensive soft skill frameworks by academic researchers, the EU and UN bodies, the OECD, but also actors such as The World Economic Forum. This leaves us with the impression that there is an increased importance placed on the role of soft skills, yet the field itself is rather messy and inconclusive.
Very broadly, soft skills can be defined as non-technical skills that enable individuals to “dynamically adapt to new challenges” (Zahn et al., 2024). Soft skills can be subcategorized as Interpersonal Skills that help us effectively work with and relate to others (think: Problem Solving, Communication Skills, Teamwork, Leadership etc.). On the other hand, soft skills can also refer to Intrapersonal Skills which, so to say, help us effectively deal with ourselves and our own cognitive and emotional responses (think: Creativity, Critical Thinking, Emotional Intelligence, Persistence etc.). Simply put, soft skills help us to overcome challenges and thrive in various contexts, including the work setting.
A recent study identified 56 foundational skills that help people thrive in the work environment (Marco Dondi et al. 2021). Soft skills such as self-confidence and coping with uncertainty stood out as most important ones and were reported to correlate most strongly with employment status, level of income, and job satisfaction, even when compared to hard skills. Similarly, data from 2023 shows that skills in most demand in online job ads in the EU27 are Transversal skills and competencies with 36.8% prevalence among other technical skills and field-specific knowledge listed in the ads. Among the transversal skills, the willingness to learn and collaborating in teams stood out as soft skills in highest demand, as illustrated in the figure bellow (CEDEFOP, 2024).
While experts might show disagreement on the importance ranking of different soft skills, data shows us that soft (or transversal) skills are an increasingly important aspect to consider in the labour market context. Interestingly, the presence of many soft skills do not correlate with education level but rather with various practical work and life experiences (Craford et al., 2011; Marco Dondi et al. 2021). This in turn raises big questions of how to ensure that the knowledge of the importance of soft skills is transformed into practical implementation and making sure that soft skills are successfully nurtured and developed alongside the ongoing demand for tech-relevant skills and competencies.
New project at IfL supports soft skill development in industrial regions
Despite the fears involved in the rapidly changing nature of work, which hovers to make specific jobs obsolete, some argue that large-scale changes such as the ongoing digital transformation and AI will increase the need for human presence and input, but the nature of that input might have to be adjusted and developed further (Bieser, 2023). For example, rather than being fully replaced by technological solutions, the need for human input with tasks that automated processes cannot (fully) provide like contextualizing knowledge, advanced emotional intelligence, and making intuitive decisions will increase. This means that whereas some tasks will indeed become obsolete, new ones will arise in response. This reasoning could be why soft skill development is becoming a growing concern for various (policy) agendas of governments, international organizations, and businesses across the world (see for example the European Skills Agenda).
At IfL, we too aim to contribute to this growing field of interest within our newly commenced project x-Inno Radar – a collaborative endeavour consisting of ten project partners from various industrial regions across the EU. Industrial regions represent a rich ground for looking, research and otherwise, into the challenges and potentials of nurturing soft skills within highly tech-savvy environments. Some of the main goals of the project are mapping out existing actors and working formats in the field of soft skills development via the digital screening tool and regional expert focus group meetings and workshops. Importantly, together with project partners, we will collaboratively develop innovative pilot actions with the aim of mounting new ways of soft skill development in industrial regions, and thereby supporting the growing labour market demand for soft skills as well as endowing local communities to navigate through the new era of various technological transformations. If you are interested in this topic, we welcome you to follow our work via our website.
Jelena Jovičić is a postdoc researcher at the IfL Research Area „Multiple Geographies of Regional and Local Development“