At the Teknikcollege* national conference on 8 November, Robert Grubesic from Interal AB participated in a panel discussion on the topic ”How can we make it more attractive for young people to train in technology?”
Another entrepreneur, a PhD student and two political representatives from the Social Democrats and the Conservatives took part in the debate.
Företagarna talked about the industry's need for different types of labour in the field of technology and the challenges we as Swedish industry face today in terms of lack of labour with the right skills.
Politicians agreed that industry needs to open its doors and showcase its activities. They made a number of concrete proposals, such as open days for employees' families, study visits for school classes, to name but a few.
Interal has already taken these ideas on board in the past and organised an open house for employees and their families in spring 2015, which is a good way to showcase this industry to the next generation, where there is currently less interest in technical education.
Robert's overall impression of the debate was positive and he summarises it as follows: ”It's a tough business to run as a contract hire company in Sweden, but after today I felt a bit more hopeful because of the strong commitment from politicians at national level.”
*Teknikcollege is a concept in which 3,000 industrial companies work together with 150 education coordinators throughout Sweden. The aim is to increase the attractiveness and quality of technically orientated education (http://www.teknikcollege.se)
