*4.1. Analyzing the E-Skills and E-Activities at the Established Three Zones*

Each variable is analyzed and the trend is viewed for Romania, the EU28 level, and the best-in-class group in order to observe the differences.

#### 4.1.1. Analyzing the E-skills Trend

The data regarding e-skills are presented by years and for the three chosen zones (Table 1).


**Table 1.** Data about e-skills (y) [66].

According to the European Commission Report, Romania shows limited e-skills policy activity. The NRI ranking (networked readiness index) reveals again that those countries with high NRI positions also show high e-skills policy activity levels (Figure 1). The NRI rank for the EU27 shows that Romania is at the 25th rank for the 27 European countries [67].

**Figure 1.** Graphic representation of e-skills by countries and by years.

The values for e-skills (Figure 1) are above average for the EU28 countries (58 in 2019), with Romania being much below the average (31 in 2019), although it is following a positive and increasing trend. For the best-in-class group (DFNS) an increased trend is observed (values between 70 and 79 for 2019), thus, H1 is fulfilled, i.e., there a difference between the e-skills values observed at the level of the three analyzed groups. Romania, due to the reduced number of computers (11/100 capita in 2004, 19/100 capita in 2007, and 47/100 in 2015) as compared with the Netherlands (91/100 in 2007 and 97.6/100 in 2017), Sweden (88/100 in 2007 and 92.8/100 in 2017), Denmark (55/100 in 2007 and 93.1/100 in 2017), and Finland (50/100 capita in 2007 and 93.5/100 in 2017) [68–70] has a reduced level of e-skills, however, there are other issues such as many villages have no energy power, the increased age of the population, the increased number of children who are not at school, and other indicators.
