Almost i two thirds of employed people use digital skills. This is what emerges from the results published byIstat on the professional skills included in the Workforce survey conducted during 2022.
The 37.1% of employed people carry out activities that require the use of digital equipment for at least half of the working time (on average for EU countries the percentage is 41.2%), while 32.9% never use such equipment (27.5% on European average). The percentages the lowest use of digital skills is found among foreigners (7.8%) and less educated people (9.1%).
To use digital tools more to carry out work activities they are employed people aged 30-44while in the class 15-29 year olds have the highest percentage of those who do not use this skill at all (36.5%). Among those employed, the percentage of women who use digital tools for at least half of their working time is decidedly higher than that of men (42.1 and 33.4%, respectively).
The massive use of digital instruments – both for basic operations (such as sending emails, dealing with social channels and communication) and for more complex activities based on the use of software or management applications – particularly characterizes the activities of the employees, who in 80.9% of cases dedicate at least half of their working time to digital activities, especially if employed in secretarial functions, money movements or customer assistance.
Among office workers, the highest shares are found among women (88.5%) and graduates (89.1%) and a high use of digital skills is also found among those who carry out intellectual, scientific or technical professions: for both, around two-thirds declare that they use PCs, tablets and smartphones for most of the working day. Among intellectual and scientific professions, the share of those who dedicate at least half of their working time to digital activities, it is high for men (74.2%) and for graduates (67.4%), approaching 90% for specialists in mathematical, computer, chemical, physical and natural sciences, for engineers and architects. Among technical professions, the share exceeds 80% for those who work in organisation, administration and financial and commercial activities.
Cognitive reading and calculation skills show a strong positive correlation in all EU countries between the percentage of employed people who dedicate more than half of their working time spent reading documents and the percentage of employed people who dedicate more than half of their working time to carrying out complex calculations. The frequent use of these skills characterizes 19% of employed people (19.7% on European average).
