Home to over 800 companies with a skilled workforce of 18,000, the region generates €3.5 billion in revenue a year, making Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes the French leader in technical and functional textiles.
Dedicated to improving competitiveness and sustainability in the textiles industry, the new partnership focuses on regional strategies to strengthen skills development and tackle workforce shortages in the sector, an official release said.
The Pact for Skills is one of the flagship actions of the European Skills Agenda. It aims at supporting public and private organisations with upskilling and reskilling, so they can thrive through green and digital transitions.
The textile sector faces challenges that threaten its sustainability and competitiveness. One of the primary concerns is the sector’s ability to stay competitive amidst the rise of energy costs, limited access to raw materials and the increasing demands of the ecological transition.
In addition, the sector faces work-related challenges, with 63 per cent of companies struggling to fill key roles. An ageing workforce, shifting skills demands and limited training capacity have intensified the challenge.
The Regional Skills Partnership will create a resilient and adaptable textile workforce that can respond to ongoing changes. It will help textile companies anticipate and adapt to evolving skills needs driven by economic, technological and societal changes.
In addition, the partnership will promote lifelong learning through apprenticeships and will support professional integration and inclusion across the sector.
It will also work to raise awareness of careers in textiles, attracting, guiding and retaining people through training programmes.
Together, these efforts will strengthen the sector’s resilience and competitiveness. These ambitions are driven by key objectives to boost the sector’s adaptability and European reach.
Finally, the partnership will position Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes as a leading European textile region by contributing to the TCLF Skills Alliance, a collaborative initiative focused on enhancing skills development within the textile, clothing, footwear and leather (TCLF) industries in Europe, and EU initiatives like the TCLF SkillBridge.
To meet its goals, the partnership will design new training frameworks and transform existing training courses to meet companies’ needs. These will be focused on sustainability-related objectives.
It will also monitor emerging trends like adopting artificial intelligence.
ALCHEMPro News Desk (DS)
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