Digital skills of the Unemployed in the Context of the Accessibility of Employment Assistance Services

Abstract

Through the prism of opinions of specialists from employment departments and training centers of additional education and vocational training in Novosibirsk, the authors try to determine to what extent the lack of digital skills can affect the availability of public services in the field of employment assistance. According to the informants, many unemployed people lack digital competences and the necessary technical means, which indicates a digital inequality. Citizens’ identification of social networking skills with digital skills creates difficulties in obtaining unemployment status and training. The active use of digital devices leads to a lack of communication skills for most young people when they enter the labor market. For older people, there is a tendency not to use digital format to receive services. Other problems include low information literacy of unemployed citizens, inertia in obtaining digital competencies, poor motivation to study digital literacy programs, etc. These and other problems create additional difficulties in their interaction with specialists from employment services and training centers.