LocationsSerbia's Progress in the Global Green Economy
Nurturing Green Skills
November 13, 2024
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Preserving our planet necessitates transitioning our entire economic system to environmentally sustainable practices. We must harness the full capabilities of the human race toward this mission. Putting people at the centre of the shift to a green economy requires identifying and addressing disparities in access to the emerging employment opportunities, to ensure that all people can partake in the plentiful newly available jobs created by these environmental economic changes. This includes providing workers globally with the skills to perform every job in every industry in an eco-friendly manner. Developing green skills is critical to enabling greener jobs and occupations.
Green skills, such as sustainable resource management, energy efficiency analysis, renewable energy technology expertise, green building design and construction, sustainable agriculture practices form the foundation for transitioning to an environmentally sustainable economy and represent the key to unleashing the human potential that will drive this shift. We need more opportunities for individuals with green skills, as well as upskilling for workers who currently lack these capabilities. Also, we need to ensure future generations are instilled with green skills as a core part of their skill sets.
To assess the current state and recent progress of green skills acquisition, we utilised LinkedIn data. LinkedIn recently developed a new green skills taxonomy to quantify the degree to which different countries, industries, and jobs leverage these skills. We refer to this as green skills intensity. Data was collected based on self-reporting of LinkedIn users on their profiles. There are more than 41,000 skills across LinkedIn platform, and more than 1,000 of them are defined as green skills.
Analysing skills of 1.1 million people members of the LinkedIn network in Serbia
Around the world, only one in eight workers states to have one or more green skills (median green talent concentration is 12.3%). Overall, 1 in 9 workers in Serbia has at least one green skill (median green talent concentration is 11.3%). Put another way, eight in nine workers in Serbia lack even a single green skill.
Men with at least one green skill in Serbia represent 12.5% of the male workforce or 1 in 8, while globally this ratio stands at 1 in 6.
Women with at least one green skill in Serbia represent 10% of the female workforce, or 1 in 10, matching the global ratio.
Figure 1. Green skills in Serbia (number of workers, LinkedIn members)
Gender aspects
Globally, around 66% (or ⅔) of the workforce with at least one green skill is male. In Serbia, this figure is 54%.
Europe has a median green gender gap - ratio of number of women and number of men with certain skill, of 5%. In France, 17.3% of men and 11.7% of women were green talent in 2023, for a gap of 5.6 points. In Germany, 21.8% of men and 12.3% of women have at least one green skill, resulting in a gender gap of 9.5%. In Serbia, the green gender gap is smaller at 2.5 percentage points, with 12.5% of men and 10% of women possessing at least one green skill.
Women are underrepresented throughout the global workforce. The issue is especially severe in the field of renewable energy where women represent 34% compared to 44% in other industries, while in Serbia there are 35.5% women working in renewable energy (49% overall in all industries).
Women are 20% more likely to have skills related to sustainable development and circular economy both in Serbia and globally. In Serbia, women are 25% more likely to have green skills related to climate change, climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Figure 2. Gender Gap index for green skills in Serbia
Age groups
We categorised the information by age groups (18-24, 25-34, 35-54, 55+) that covers the most popular green skill areas. Upon analysing the data, several key observations emerge.
There is a clear trend of increasing green skills in all areas with age, peaking in the 35-54 age group. This suggests that green skills are most prevalent among mid-career professionals in Serbia. In contrast, the 18-24 age group shows the lowest numbers. This could indicate a need for more education or opportunities in these fields for younger people.
The 25-34 age group generally ranks second in most categories, while the 55+ age group typically has the lowest numbers among the three older age groups.
These findings have implications for Serbia's green economy and workforce development as they indicate the need for more green skills training and opportunities for younger professionals.
Figure 3. Age groups
Seniority levels
In the next step of the analysis, we categorised the information by seniority levels, including Entry, Senior, Manager, Director, VP, CXO, and Owner. The same green skill areas are covered. Upon analysing this data, several interesting patterns emerge.
The data shows that green skills are most common among Entry and Senior level professionals. It is worth noting that the numbers for Entry and Senior levels are quite close in most skill areas, suggesting a relatively even distribution of these skills between early career and more experienced professionals.
At the managerial level, there is a noticeable decrease in numbers across all skill areas. This could potentially indicate a skills gap at this level, or it might reflect the natural pyramid structure of organisations where there are fewer managers than entry-level or senior employees.
Interestingly, the numbers tend to increase again at the Director level for most skill areas. This could suggest that green skills become more important at higher levels of leadership, possibly due to the strategic nature of sustainability and environmental considerations in business decision-making.
For the highest seniority levels (VP, CXO, and Owner), the numbers are generally lower, which is expected given the smaller pool of individuals at these levels. However, it is notable that even at these top levels, there is a significant presence of green skills, particularly in Sustainability and Environmental Science.
Climate Change appears to have lower numbers compared to other skills, especially at higher seniority levels. This could indicate an area where there's room for growth and development across the Serbian workforce.
Renewable energy shows moderate numbers across most seniority levels but does not stand out as particularly high in any category. This might suggest an opportunity for further development and focus in this area, especially given the growing importance of renewable energy globally.
Figure 4. Seniority levels
Green skills supply and demand
From 2022 to 2023, the LinkedIn Global Green Skills Report revealed a median 12.3% increase in the proportion of workers possessing at least one green skill across the 48 countries analysed. Notably, the share of job postings mandating a minimum of one green skill expanded at nearly twice that rate, with a median growth of 22.4% during the same period. The increase in demand for green skills is outpacing the increase in supply, raising the prospect of an imminent green skills shortage.
Specific Industries
Globally, the share of auto workers with Electric Vehicles (EV) skills, a subset of green skills, rose by a median of 61% between 2018 to 2023. The countries with the greatest share of auto workers with EV skills are Sweden (8.1%), the UK (7.3%), and Germany (6.1%). In Serbia, this percentage is 2.5. This skill has the lowest Gender Gap Index of all green skills in Serbia, just 0.34.
Finance is an enabler of green transformation. A positive trend is that workers in the US and Europe are rapidly developing a set of skills that bridge the finance and sustainability domains. Capabilities related to carbon accounting, carbon credits, and emissions trading are among the green skills with the fastest growth in the US and the European Union (EU). We could not measure these particular skills for Serbia as the numbers were too small (less than 300 LinkedIn members), which shows that this trend is not yet visible in Serbia.
Conclusion
The transition to a green economy is a global imperative, and developing green skills across the workforce is fundamental to achieving this crucial shift. While progress is being made in certain regions and sectors, the analysis of LinkedIn data reveals significant gaps both in overall green skills adoption and in gender representation within green roles.
Encouragingly, promising trends are emerging, such as the rapid growth of sustainability-focused finance skills in the US and EU. However, the data for Serbia highlights areas requiring further attention, including a notable underrepresentation of women in renewable energy roles and a nascent adoption of green finance capabilities.
As we forge ahead on the path to environmental sustainability, a concerted effort is needed to provide equitable access to green upskilling opportunities across genders, industries, and geographies. By empowering all segments of the global workforce with the requisite green skills, we can unlock the full human potential to drive the transformative change our planet demands. The future of our economies and our very existence depend on our collective ability to "green" every job and every sector through the cultivation of a skilled, diverse, and environmentally conscious workforce.
Policy recommendations
Governments can collaborate with the private sector to accelerate skills-based hiring and broaden the sustainability talent pool through a multi-faceted approach involving incentives and subsidies for upskilling in green skills, public-private partnerships aligning training with industry needs, standardised skills certifications, comprehensive labour market data analysis, public awareness campaigns, facilitation of apprenticeships and internships in green sectors, and funding for retraining programs transitioning workers to sustainable industries while leveraging their existing skills.
Policymakers, the private sector, and educational institutions can collaborate to integrate relevant green skills into curricula and foster new degree programs through a multi-pronged approach. This includes establishing comprehensive green skills frameworks, creation of nationally recognized credentialing system valued by employers and competency standards developed jointly by interdisciplinary councils; providing funding, incentives, and accreditation requirements that drive curriculum updates and new program creation aligned with sustainability principles; promoting interdisciplinary, experiential pedagogies like problem-based learning; enabling professional development for faculty to enhance green instruction capabilities; and strengthening university-industry research partnerships that inform curriculum with real-world applications.
By implementing such an ecosystem-wide strategy involving competency mapping, incentives, pedagogical innovation, quality assurance mechanisms, cross-sector expertise sharing, and robust knowledge transfer pipelines, we can ensure every student gains a strong green skills foundation required for the transition to a sustainable future.
*** All Global LinkedIn data presented is from 2023, (based on Global Green Skills report 2023, 930 million users across 48 countries), while data for Serbia is from March 2024, obtained via LinkedIn Campaign Manager tool audience estimates, adopting the approach explained in World Bank Data.
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