DIGITAL SKILLS AS A PERSPECTIVE OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE ECONOMY AND IMPORTANT DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FACTOR

Looking through history, each wave shows its unique causality between innovation, diffusion, institutional changes, productivity changes, changes in the number of companies and employees, and relative price factors (Lundquist, Olander and Svensson Henning, 2008). An increasing number of technological innovations requires the current workforce to continually update their skills to be ready to respond to new roles in the sectors in which they operate, and which are influenced or will be influenced by new technologies. The paper will show the initiatives taken by individual governments and companies, starting from education, especially higher education, adapting curricula, participating in the new curricula development, and ultimately creating a new workforce that is ready to respond to the work demands of the digital economy market. Effective skills in using technology, combined with knowledge and innovation competencies, can increase the digital skills compatibility with the needs of the digital economy. Most industries and sectors recognise that, as more and more digitalizations are made, there will be more and more demand for employees with different levels of digital skills. An overview of the definition of digital skills with detailed insight into the areas that they encompass is made, and the differences between the terms related to digital literacy, such as information and communication technology literacy, information, media and Internet literacy are listed. It is of the utmost importance to ‘jump’ into the wave of digital changes on time. How many great major powers have succeeded at this, such as the United States, China, Australia, and what is the situation in Europe and Croatia when it comes to adaptation in the times of digital transformation. These are the primary questions and the purpose of this paper. The answer to these questions is presented in terms of formulations, definitions, statistical data, investment strategies and analysis of many relevant sources. Inductive and deductive methods, methods of analysis and synthesis were used.