How Europe is fighting the shortage of skilled workers

Sweden, for example, urgently needs IT experts. Above all, companies like the music streaming service Spotify or the gaming industry are looking for specialists. In the IT sector, around 70,000 specialists are expected to be required in addition in the coming years.

Sweden is trying to attract particularly qualified specialists, including those from abroad, with an “expert tax”: Under certain conditions, such as a monthly salary of at least 9,000 euros or special qualifications, the specialists only have to pay tax on 75 percent of their salary in the first three years of their employment . The need is so great that many companies no longer bring programmers to Sweden, but employ Ukrainian specialists directly in Kiev.

Remote work is possible for developers, but it doesn’t work for medical staff – another area with many vacancies. Here the country is trying to attract workers, especially from Eastern Europe. It also offers help with finding accommodation, further training and other benefits. There is no minimum salary that a foreign skilled worker has to earn.

French corporations advertise on Tiktok and on Jobdatings

In France, too, there is a shortage of workers in almost all sectors since the economy has flourished again after the lockdowns, not only in electromechanics or in the development sector. Hotels and hospitals complain about a lack of staff, as do retirement homes, ski slope operators and craft businesses.

There are up to 50,000 vacancies for truck drivers alone. Some supermarkets have already had to close their meat counters because there is nobody who wants to work at the weekend.

The situation is particularly tense in construction, where there are recruitment problems in 70 percent of cases. Since Corona, more and more people have wanted to work from home, which makes jobs without permanent presence more attractive.

According to the employment office, even large companies that offer attractive salary or holiday conditions are finding it increasingly difficult to find skilled workers. There are up to 900,000 vacancies across the country. At 7.4 percent, the unemployment rate is at its lowest level in ten years.

Trade unions and employers are now rethinking, offering job dating and organizing recruiting conferences. Large companies such as the state railways or banks offer short internships to get a taste of jobs. Instead of classic job advertisements, companies are increasingly posting job videos on Tiktok. More and more start-ups are specializing in helping with the search for personnel.

Denmark wants to lower salary limit for foreigners

In Denmark, there is a lack of medical staff and IT specialists. In order to make the country more attractive to foreign skilled workers, there is currently a debate about lowering the minimum annual salary. At the moment, an employer has to pay an annual salary equivalent to almost 60,000 euros so that non-EU specialists can stay in the country permanently. The social-democratic minority government would like to lower the amount to just over 50,000 euros, while the opposition parties want to draw the limit even lower.

However, the opposition provided their counter-proposal with an addition that caused outrage: the new regulation should not include specialists from Muslim countries in North Africa and the Middle East. Government officials spoke of “racism” and “discrimination”.

The fact is that Denmark will lack around 100,000 skilled workers by 2030 – and that the country has scared off many potential workers in recent years with its extremely restrictive immigration policy.

This is also due to the rather gradual recognition of vocational training. Doctors currently have to wait around 33 months for their documents to be checked. And even then they are not allowed to work immediately, but have to complete language and qualification tests. In order to reduce the shortage, especially in the health sector, the test times are now to be shortened.

The Czech Republic is planning a points system based on the Canadian model

In the Czech Republic, the unemployment rate is so low that it has become a problem for the economy. According to Eurostat, the unemployment rate in December 2021 was 2.1 percent – the lowest in the EU. The country still has a strong industry with a high demand for workers. “The labor shortage is becoming a limiting factor for growth and new investments,” says economist Zuzana Zavarska from the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies.

For a long time, Ukraine was the most important recruitment area for the Czech Republic. But other countries, such as Poland, are also competing for Ukrainians. The government has therefore concluded bilateral agreements with other states that provide for the posting of a limited number of workers. Such agreements exist, for example, with Eastern European countries, but also with India and the Philippines.

However, it is mainly the low-skilled who come into the country this way. In order to continue to grow and to diversify the economy, which is heavily geared towards production, the Czech Republic needs more specialists. “But our country is not particularly attractive for them,” says Dusan Drbohlav, a migration specialist from the University of Prague.

The government is therefore examining introducing a points system based on the Canadian model: This should give companies better access to highly qualified workers.

Spain is pumping billions into the education system

Spain is the country with the highest unemployment rate (13.0) in the EU – and yet there are currently almost 120,000 vacancies. This is the highest value in the past ten years. In a central bank survey, 27 percent of companies complained about problems in filling vacancies, even though the economy has only just begun to recover.

Most vacancies are in low value-added sectors: agriculture, construction, hospitality. According to economists, at least part of the shortage of workers is temporary. “This imbalance is likely to be temporary and should resolve as migration flows recover,” write the Caixabank Research experts. What is more worrying, however, is the “increasing decoupling” between qualifications and desired profiles. In the coming years, technical qualifications for logistics and energy experts, but also for data analysts, will increase.

The Spanish government is reacting to the development with an education reform that is being financed with money from the European reconstruction fund. Ten percent of the 70 billion euros that Spain receives as non-repayable transfers from the EU are to go to education. This includes, for example, the introduction of dual training, which has been discussed for years but has never been implemented on a large scale.

Schools and universities are also to be digitized, and digital and programming skills are to be included in the curricula. At the end of 2021, the government also passed a labor market reform that severely pushed back fixed-term contracts. They make up a quarter of all contracts so far. The reform increases the incentive for companies to invest in further training for their employees.

Italy relies on tech training and daycare places

Hardly any other economy in Europe is currently growing as strongly as the Italian one: it was 6.5 percent last year. Exports are booming, companies are hiring – but according to the Italian Chamber of Commerce, more than 56 percent cannot find the skilled workers they want. Around 400,000 jobs are vacant, especially in mechanical engineering, electronics and construction, but also in tourism and trade.

To counteract this, the country wants to expand a special training program: the “Istituti tecnici superiori”, which can best be compared with German universities of applied sciences. During the two-year training, the focus can be placed on sustainable mobility, energy efficiency, IT or new technologies.

80 percent of graduates find a job within a year, a good half of the lecturers come from companies, and a third of the training takes place in companies. There are already 104 of these institutes in the country, and the number is set to increase, also thanks to 1.5 billion euros from the Corona reconstruction fund.

Italy also has one of the lowest employment rates for women: while around 68 percent of men work, the figure for women is just under half. The government is trying to counteract this with family support. Day-care centers are being massively expanded, and child benefit was recently introduced. Low earners get 250 euros per child per month, with top earners it is 50 euros.

Poland itself recruits in Nepal and Bangladesh

Poland positioned itself as a vehement opponent of immigration during the 2015 refugee crisis. “However, when it comes to labor migration, the country is pursuing an ultra-liberal policy,” says Pawel Kaczmarczyk from the Center for Migration Research at the University of Warsaw. For example, the government created the “Business Harbour” program, which was specifically aimed at Belarusian IT professionals who no longer wanted to live in their dictatorially ruled homeland.

In a second step, the government expanded the program to other countries, such as Georgia, Armenia and even Russia. Migrant workers, for example, benefit from an accelerated settlement procedure. Many Poles have left the country in recent years. Immigrants, mainly from Ukraine, filled the gap. However, these are generally not as well qualified as Polish emigrants. Private placement companies are therefore constantly looking for potential workers in new countries: meanwhile already in Nepal, Bangladesh and the Philippines.

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