By: Nghiinomenwa-vali Erastus
An analysis by LinkedIn has indicated that green skills and jobs are urgently needed to power the green transition.
Their report provided new data on green skills and jobs from all across the world that depict where the world stands in the required skills for the green transition, and for policymakers, governments and business leaders to use the insights for the transition in the global workforce to a green economy future.
The LinkedIn report explained that green skills are the building blocks of the green transition and the key to unlocking the human capital that will power it. Thus, the local and global economy needs to upskill workers who currently lack those skills and ensure green skills are hardwired into the skill-set of future generations.
The Namibian education system has been under the microscope from observers as it struggles to equip the graduates with the necessary skills with the economy opting to hire more South African graduates.
Namibia has taken a stance to adopt rather a mixture, embarking on carbon emitting projects while implementing various green projects. However, the country’s efforts are met with skill barriers.
The University of Namibia and the Green Hydrogen Council hosted Green Hydrogen High Schooler Career last month to introduce the new sector. While some bursaries have been offered for students to go pursue various studies in the green hydrogen value chain.
LinkedIn experts defined green skills as those that enable the environmental sustainability of economic activities while green jobs as those that cannot be performed without extensive knowledge of green skills.
The experts have noted the global economy is currently going through a great upheaval around the world and they suggest economic leaders and policymakers harness this moment of change to redirect human talent to rise to the most urgent challenge facing humanity: green transition.
“We cannot wait any longer to address climate change. We have to green the economy and activate the jobs, companies, and policies that will power it,” the report read.
The Linkedin experts indicated that if the world needs to capitalise on the unprecedented moment of change to redirect human talent to accelerate the green transition, “we’ll have a fighting chance of meeting the climate challenge.”
This, however, requires moving toward an economy that transitions workers into jobs beyond those currently considered green.
According to the reports, new workers need to enter green and greening potential jobs, bolstered by green skills and more opportunities from employers.
“The hard truth is that right now we are nowhere close to having sufficient green talent, green skills or green jobs to deliver the green transition,” the experts found.
Based on the current trajectory of green skills growth in the labour market, the world is not going to have the sufficient human capital to meet climate targets, the report stated.
While more workers are transitioning into green and greening jobs than are leaving, the total number of workers transitioning into those jobs is still low.
The experts indicated that not all jobs will need to be exclusively green — it is not just those building solar panels — it is the sustainable fashion manufacturer, the fleet manager, the sales manager.
The report findings indicated that there is a marked lack of green skills and jobs, and this is slowing the rate at which countries can green their economies.
The experts suggest that green skills intensity needs to increase in every sector and country to build the supply needed and meet the demand required to achieve climate goals.
According to Linkedin expert observations in 2019, the balance tipped towards green talent as the green hiring rate accelerated ahead of the overall hiring rate in most economies around the world.
This means that, globally, green workers were hired at a higher rate than non-green workers. At the same time, the share of green talent in the global workforce increased from 9.6% in 2015 to 13.3% so far in 2021 (an annual growth rate of 6% and a cumulative growth rate of 38%), said Linkedin.
Email: erastus@thevillager.com.na