Market Needs for a Circular Transition: Implemented Practices and Required Skills

The circular economy (CE) transition demands a paradigm shift requiring to incorporate changes in manufacturing processes, business relationships, innovations. And professional skills. In particular, there is a growing demand for skills associated with developing circular business models and exploring innovative solutions derived from emerging digital technologies. The CE job market is highly heterogeneous, with individuals from different educational backgrounds who can work in numerous sectors. However, to date, the literature has offered few insights regarding the skills required for CE applied in manufacturing, especially in industrial sectors considered critical to advance CE initiatives, such as Textiles, Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), and Automotive. Therefore, the research objective of this contribution is to explore, from a practitioner’s point of view, the current needs and already-in-place actions to align the skills and job profiles required for the circular transition in the textile, WEEE, and automotive sectors. This study relies on 6 interviews to collect empirical evidence in terms of job profiles, critical skills, and possible training programs already implemented to fill organizational demand. As a result, digital skills resulted to be important to monitor performances and track products across the value chain. This is pushed especially by the creation of DPPs that are entering all the sectors. Soft skills are considered essential especially to drive collaboration (both internally and externally) which is considered the key pillar under the creation of circular systems. Last, no specific job profiles are needed but those already existing need to be enhanced with CE-oriented knowledge.