According to research by ManpowerGroup, skilled trades are globally the hardest positions to fill.
According to new research from ManpowerGroup, talent shortages almost doubled as compared to a decade ago globally. The report, titled Closing the Skills Gap: What Workers Want, reveals that 54 percent of businesses in 36 out of 44 countries found it more difficult to attract skilled talent last year than in 2018.
The greatest year-on-year shortage increases occurred in the U.S (69 percent), Mexico (52 percent ) Italy (47 percent) and Spain (41 percent) which reported the most acute shortages, while only 18 percent of countries surveyed did not report any talent shortages.
According to the research, the most difficult positions to fill were skilled trades (i.e electricians, welders, mechanics). Second were jobs in sales and marketing (i.e. sales representatives, graphics designers etc ) and the third most difficult positions to fill were for technicians (i.e. quality controllers technical staff etc).
Office administrators, contact centre staff, project managers, lawyers and researchers fall out of the top ten reflecting the rise in automation of routine tasks. Healthcare professionals also entered the top ten reflecting the impact of the world’s ageing population.
The report states that, in order to overcome talent shortage in the future, employers must put people first, invest in building and nurturing talent by enabling individuals to reach their potential holistically, rewarding productivity over presentism and driving a culture of learnability.
"In an increasingly tech-enabled world, people with skills are in demand, More than half of companies around the world cannot find the skills they are looking for – almost double what it was a decade ago. As the pace of technological disruption, digitization and automation continues to accelerate, most employers globally are increasing or maintaining, not reducing their headcount," says Jonas Prising, ManpowerGroup Chairman & CEO. "
As skills needs and job roles are changing faster than ever, the need for a Skills Revolution – which we predicted four years ago – continues to be the defining challenge of our time. In an increasingly technology-enabled world, people are in demand. To find, build and sustain the best talent while others are trying to do the same, companies need to know What Workers Want. They need to shift their workforce demands to closer match the needs and desires of in-demand talent and expand the pool from which they source that talent.
