SKILLS GAP AS A HIDDEN COST OF ENERGY TRANSITION: EVIDENCE FROM UZBEKISTAN’S OIL AND GAS WORKFORCE

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Energy transition in Uzbekistan is typically assessed in terms of investment, renewable capacity and emission targets. The human-capital dimension - specifically the growing mismatch between existing oil and gas workforce competencies and transition requirements - remains analytically underexplored and financially unquantified. Thus, this paper identifies and analyses the skills gap in Uzbekistan’s oil and gas workforce as a hidden economic cost of the energy transition. The skills gap generates five categories of hidden cost — operational, investment, productivity, compliance and social. These compound across a portfolio of transition projects and are systematically absent from ex ante project appraisals. Addressing them requires a coordinated sectoral skills roadmap, internal corporate reskilling, updated university and TVET curricula, and explicit labour-mobility policy.