The digitization it continues to grow at a frenetic pace and disrupts all economic sectors. Spain continues to be the undisputed leader in connectivityranking number seven in the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) produced annually by the European Commission.
It is only surpassed in this regard by Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland and Malta. Some of these countries also rank ahead in the fiber serviceswhere Spain occupies the fourth position with a 93.8% coverage. An important piece of information taking into account that the average for the whole of the EU is 70.2%. All this is due to the large investments in 5G made by the country, since Telefónica closed last year with 1,719 municipalities with 5G, that is, coverage of more than 83% of the population.
Despite these data, the end of the pandemic, and therefore of teleworking, seems to have especially affected digitization and the creation of highly-skilled jobs. This is stated in the annual report ‘The Digital Society in Spain 2023’ produced by Telefonica Foundation and presented on April 25. currently exist 124,400 free digital profile vacancies in companies and a drop in teleworking to 12%below the 17.6% registered in 2021.
The data recently provided by Eurostat reveal that the number of ICT specialists grew in the EU 50% between 2020 and 2021, eight times more than the general growth of employment in the area. Similarly, one in four jobs created in Spain in 2020 It was related to science and innovation.
Spain, which is ranked 10th in the world ranking in science and 30th in innovation, is aware that the sectors with the greatest job offer are related to software, systems and cybersecurity. Added to this is the fact that those who manage to find workers for these positions realize that in 43% of cases they have a insufficient digital skills.
With respect to telecommuting, after peaks of 20% were reached during the 2020 pandemic, in 2021 the rate was reduced to 17.6%, and as normality has been recovered, it has been reduced. However, it is still above the 5% that was recorded in 2019. The largest decreases in teleworking have been registered in small companies.
The most effective solution
The digitization process of a country is achieved through digital talent, the construction of a secure internet free of cyberthreats, and innovation in education. In this sense, there are many expert voices that reflect the need to introduce the subject of computer programming at all educational levels. In this way, it would be possible to prepare professionals of the future who are not strictly digital in these technological skills.
Internet use in society
Currently, companies advocate Web3 and the immersive internet, blockchain, industry 4.0 with an advance in automation and drones as an effective solution based on the digital economy and to social development. However, artificial intelligence continues to establish itself as the preferred option by multiplying its learning speed by 100 million in ten years.
79.7% of people between 16 and 74 years used websites or mobile applications of an institution. In fact, 66.3% of the world population declared themselves an Internet user in 2022 (3.7 points more than in the previous year). Of those 5.280 million people, 69.2% were men and 63.4% women.
Although entertainment-related services are the ones that triumph among Spaniards, electronic commerce has also maintained very good figures during 2022since the percentage of people who bought online in the last three months was 55.3%, one tenth more than in 2021. Despite everything, spending per user fell, returning to figures similar to 2019.
Online banking experienced growth in 2022since 73.7% of Internet users accessed online banking services in the last three months, which is 6.2% more than in 2021.
Europe’s leading role
If we analyze the geographical distribution, Europe, the former Soviet republics and America more than 80% of userswhile in Africa not even 40% is reached, where the gender gap also represents a difference of 11.5 points in favor of men.
The report also points out that six large companies concentrate more than half of the data traffic of the networks, although they do not pay anything to use their capacity, which means higher costs for network operators in the EU. Big tech like Netflix, Google either Goal a sustainable awareness is required of them. For all these reasons, Telefónica insists on the need to establish a regulatory proposal that controls the digital ecosystem, where payment is based on traffic.
