“Labour shortages affect growth, innovation and the EU’s ability to achieve its digital and green targets”, while around 80% of employers in the EU struggle to recruit workers with the right skills, Eurofound, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, pointed out in a new study on Tuesday 10 September.
“The skills of one in three employees [in the EU] are mismatched with their job: 17% are overqualified and 13% are underqualified”, adds Eurofound.
Labour shortages can also have profound implications for working conditions “whereby the existing workforce experiences intensified work, increasing the likelihood of stress and burnout, leading to absences and exits that exacerbate the situation”, the agency goes on to summarise.
Furthermore, job vacancies in the EU are increasingly being filled by workers changing jobs with better pay and conditions, rather than by unemployed people entering the labour market. “This could indicate ineffective activation policies, particularly for those outside the labour market or underemployed”.
In 2023, a quarter of companies in the EU were forced to recruit workers lacking the required skills. And 18% of companies say that fewer than one in five new recruits have the necessary skills. Between 2015 and 2020, the share of EU companies providing training also fell.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/ddh (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)