Launched: June 2026
The challenge
Employment levels and production capacity in the textile and clothing (TC) industries in Slovenia have decreased significantly in recent decades. This decline is particularly felt in the Central Slovenia region, where there are skills mismatches, limited sector visibility and a misalignment between worker education and the needs of the TC industry.
The TC industry also faces issues with talent attraction and retention due to perceptions of low wages, limited career prospects and low levels of innovation. These add to the issues of Central Slovenia’s ageing workforce, limited inflow of new talent and declining number of dedicated educational and training programmes.
However, the European Green Deal and the EU’s digital transition goals present an opportunity for Central Slovenia’s TC industry to modernise and upskill, as the demand for sustainable production processes, circular business models and digital technologies requires fresh skills.
The ambition
In response to these challenges, the Pact for Skills Regional Skills Partnership (RSP) for Textile & Clothing in Central Slovenia aims to build a coordinated ecosystem connecting education, industry, research and public stakeholders to upskill and attract new workers in Slovenia’s TC industry.
The RSP aims to strengthen skills, support the green and digital transitions and make the TC sector more attractive, whilst improving competitiveness and resilience.
Central Slovenia is well placed to achieve these aims, with many institutions and innovation actors concentrated in the region. The Textile & Clothing in Central Slovenia RSP is part of the Large-Scale Partnership for Textile, Clothing, Leather and Footware Ecosystem (TCLF Skills Alliance). This LSP brings together 20 RSPs across the EU to invest in the exchange of best practices and increasing the attractiveness of the sector while aiming to promote upskilling and reskilling of 5 % of the workforce each year by 2030 across the ecosystem.
The commitments
To develop workers’ skills and knowledge as well as improve the overall attractiveness of the sector, the RSP is committed to the following actions:
- Strengthen and promote lifelong learning and training opportunities at formal and informal levels. Each year the RSP will identify skills and knowledge gaps, using this information to implement upskilling, reskilling and micro-training programmes. This will increase accessibility and transparency, while encouraging participation in training.
- Building and strengthening partnerships between educational and study programmes, industry and other stakeholders. By connecting key stakeholders, the RSP will create awareness of job opportunities and skills needs while encouraging knowledge transfer, mentoring, collaboration and project-based learning.
- Encouraging the inclusion of vulnerable groups and increasing the sector’s attractiveness by raising awareness of employment opportunities, language courses, national vocational qualification programmes and career opportunities.
The impact
The RSP’s activities aim to achieve the following impacts:
- Promote a culture of lifelong learning and inclusive participation by identifying lifelong learning opportunities through an annual survey shared with higher education institutions (HEI), vocational education and training (VET) schools and CPI Slovenia.
- Build strong skills partnerships with Pact stakeholders by connecting schools with industry so that VET and HEI schools can organise student visits to TC companies, enabling internships, student work, thesis mentorship or employment opportunities.
- Promote the sector’s attractiveness through an annual roundtable meeting that will discuss school and partnership achievements, workforce needs and foreign-worker participation, promoting a more modern and international image of the TC sectors to the public.