“Reskilling” is the acquisition of the necessary skills to take on a new job or move to another department within the company where growth is expected.

With the government's policy to strongly promote it, interest in it is increasing, with seminars being held all over the country.

Reskilling is different from training to improve skills and abilities in order to continue the current work, but it is to acquire skills that create new value such as digital technology on the premise of moving to a new company or another department within the company. is.



If skilled human resources move to growth fields, the profitability of companies will increase and wages will rise, so the government is strongly promoting it. It includes the establishment of a subsidy of up to 100 million yen per year to



Under these circumstances, reskilling seminars are being actively held in various places.



A new reskilling course started this month at the Graduate Institute of Industrial Technology in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, where many working people study.

Over 10 working adults participate in this program, which involves learning digital technology through six lectures and hands-on exercises.



In the first lecture, the lecturer explained the significance of reskilling, stating that human resources who can make full use of IT and digital technology will be required at manufacturing sites in the future.



In addition to documents and catalogs, product advertisements require the use of videos that can efficiently and easily convey the features and appeal of products. I was.



A man in his 20s who works at an electronics manufacturer said, "I graduated from a liberal arts department and was in charge of advertising for home appliances, but I would like to acquire new skills and get involved in manufacturing." .



A female teacher in her 60s at a nursing school said, "Nursing also needs to be digitized, but we're still lagging behind. I wanted to introduce robots into nursing, and I participated because I wanted to be involved in its development." was

At a printing company in Nagoya

Some companies are trying to increase sales by focusing on reskilling employees and shifting operations to growth areas.



Nishikawa Communications, a printing company in Nagoya City, has been in the paper printing business for telephone directories and catalogs since its founding in the Meiji era, but the environment surrounding the company has changed significantly, such as the progress of paperless.



For this reason, we have been focusing on employee reskilling for the past five years.



Employees will be allowed to devote up to 20% of their working hours to internal and external study sessions and e-learning.



Keisuke Kunita, an employee (31), has been involved in the manufacture of paper adhesive tapes as a researcher since joining the company at the age of 31, but he has used the company's system to acquire multiple digital-related qualifications such as the "IT Passport".



He is currently working as an AI engineer, and is an "image generation AI" that loads a large amount of image data into AI and instructs facial expressions, hairstyles, and backgrounds to create images and process photos. I am researching a field called



If we can develop this, it will be possible to create posters and web advertisements that look as if they were actually shot, even without a model or photographer.

Mr. Kunita says, "When I first joined the company, I was covered in adhesives every day while doing research, but I wondered if there would be a job for me in the next few decades. The field of AI is developing very rapidly. It's fast and difficult, but it's fulfilling in a fun field where various technologies come out."



The company has already shifted to the digital field, such as a marketing business that uses AI to analyze how the advertisements put out by client companies affect sales. It used to be the printing business, but now the digital business accounts for about half.

Mr. Masahiro Kamiya, who is in charge of human resources, said, "When we thought about what we could work on as paper media decreased, it was necessary to develop new business areas, and for that reason, we have been re-learning. If you don't work on it, you can't even maintain the status quo, so you need to do it desperately."

Expert "Acceleration is important for small and medium-sized enterprises"

We asked Neiko Oshima, senior researcher at Recruit Works Institute, if reskilling will spread in the future.



In this, Chief Researcher Oshima said, ``Reskilling will not progress just by preparing learning content. , it is important to create an environment in which employees can work with satisfaction."



On top of that, he said, "It is important to accelerate reskilling at SMEs, where 70% of people work. However, there is a lack of information throughout Japan on how SMEs should reskill. It is important for the national government, local governments, and employers' associations to work together to spread know-how nationwide."