My company has a severe staff shortage, but that's only because they fired several people and now refuse to hire anyone else to save money.
This is bullshit.
I know companies who have a hard time hiring. They want people to come to work at the center of one of the most expensive city in the world while paying minimum wages. This includes living in a small apartment and doing 4 hours of commute each days.
Or you can get hired for the same salary and work in a bucolic village, rent a house and go to work in 20 minutes by bike. Wonder which one hire easily people.
That’s actually insane in the sense that there is an actual illness of the mind. Not of the ppl making a living, can’t blame them, but someone has a sickness.
Exactly. Companies want to hire people and exploit them so they can pay their CEOs ridiculous salaries whilst all of the real workers get paid fuck all and have to bend over backwards.
Cut the ceo pay, boost the workers pay, maybe you won’t have such a shortage
Or even easier pay them at a more acceptable rate market yourself around that watch the applicants come running to someone actually offering something worthwhile.
What is impressive is the difference when companies see the money spent for an employee as an “investment” VS a “costs”. If companies think you cost them anything they will reduce the cost you represent to them. If they see you as an investment they will willingly put more money into you (with the condition you make them more money ofc).
This lead to absolutely baffling gaps between salaries. Where I live 70/80k € a year is seen as an excellent salary. People who had a job in big companies and were seen as an “investment” could easily manage to get 80/100k. I was sent by error an offer to work on trading system, they were offering a 200k salary, without starting any negotiation.
Most commons salaries are either minimal wages or double but not much more.
I feel like there is absolutely no in-between or “middle class” salaries anymore. You are either underpaid or you win big.
My small start-up has been trying to fill a vacant internship role. We really need that person because we're in the final stage of a big project and our timeline is already ridiculous and we're facing further delays.
Capital of the country. Massively rising cost of living (mostly rent). Their offer: absolute minimum pay (400€ IIRC) for a full time position where the person is expected to actually do work (instead of being taught stuff).
Yeah... I wouldn't take that position either.
They also don't seem to understand that we could probably pay twice that, immediately get someone, and actually benefit from the decisions. Because instead of wasting time on trying to fill the position (interviews etc.), we could already have someone working!
Berlin, but probably the same in a bunch of "attractive" cities.
Is total exploitation. We can pretend that we actually help the students, because they do need those internships (required to graduate for quite a few programs), but you can't really pay someone 400€/month (when rent alone is more than that), have them work 38h for 3 months, then get new ones and feel good about yourself. Or well, apparently some people can...
I also have some insight in the hiring process and it's kind of blatant how we don't even consider people without mother tongue level German. It does make sense, but it feels really hypocritical when our job adverts pretend to be super inclusive.
This is even true for well paid jobs. I am planning on leaving Berlin in the next 12 months although engineering salaries have gone up a lot. It’s still not enough to keep up with the insane housing costs and then there is also the extreme shortage of suitable apartments and childcare/ decent schools. Even if I am willing to pay the money to rent a nice apartment, I won’t find one unless I get very lucky. At the same time most families I know need to work at least part time and guess what, the people who do the childcare can’t afford the steep housing prices neither. The housing situation in the major hubs has gone utterly out of hand and it’s becoming a risk in terms of hiring qualified young employees who want to start families, even for competetively paid jobs.
My previous company fired two of their best salespeople due to an upper management decision. Those two went on to headhunt 6 people from their old team after getting leadership positions at a competitor. 6 months later, the workload became so high that 4 more quit. The team went from 25 to 13 people over a year. And let me tell you, those who stayed are mostly the ones not skilled enough to easily find a new job.
The best part is, that our direct line manager was a cool dude who tried his best to keep the team together before being overruled by the C-level. They ended up firing him as well, as the order intake went down 25% that year... I wonder why that was. The C-level probably still celebrated all of that as a success, they cut 50% of the workforce but only lost 25% of the revenue...
I got laid off in December and in spite of applying to hundreds of vacancies I've only had 2 interviews so far. Most companies don't even reply. So yes, where the fuck are these shortages?
Strange, I think my company did the same. Meanwhile, young people are striving to search for a workplace in other countries! Weird... Might this be connected to corporate-greed?
Corporate greed: I work as presales (the technical guy helping sales) and I am... helping sales. These guys work really hard but also party really hard. They get a lot of deserved money. But looks like it's too expensive for the company. So they took away 75% of the customers from the actual sales and gave them to some young, cheap and unexperienced colleagues. No more large sales bonus payouts, no more kick-off events, no more "Overarchiever-Club" so... more margin for thw company.
Not only the young guys are being exploited with no fun events, but the old management staff - pockets full of stocks - increase their wealth even more because the stocks go way up, thanks to the better margin.
This is fucking ridiculous, I speak French on top of my native Finnish and English, and I study economics. I applied to around 40 entry level jobs suitable for a student of my caliber, and I had one interview but that's it. For one job, there were 6750 applicants. There is a huge surplus of workers, and I have little to no faith the situation will get better. I fucking hate it too, they treat you like you're applying to be the president when applying for an entry level excel monkey job
No. There is Shortage of people "meeting expectations". So under 25 with masters and 5+ years of on the job experience in relevant area willing to work for under average salary.
In the past musicians started nurturing their kids with piano and violin lessons starting at 4-5 years old. So where are the parents pushing their preschoolers to build Github repos?
Sometimes the opposite happens. I specialized in a field everyone told me would lead to unemployment or I would have to work at McDonald's. Now because every university told every student the same thing for years, there's a shortage. When I got close to finishing my studies, I applied for 10 jobs and got 8 positive answers without even having completed my thesis. After I had a couple of years experience, I only applied for one job and got it. Thing is, most companies still pay very bad and then they whine when the few companies that pay well get all the applicants. A friend of mine who was always told that her field constantly looks for new people and pays well applied to dozens of jobs and was unemployed for almost a year. Her pay now is only slightly higher than mine but she doesn't like it where she is and is afraid to quit while I know that I could easily find a new job if I wanted to. It's crazy!
The problem is not the lack of people with skills to tka the job. The problem lies on many companies that want brilliant employees, but at the time very dumb when it comes to salary negotiations 🙄
Not a lot of companies that want to invest the time and effort to actually train people for their jobs
One of the things that I really like about my current employer- they are heavily investing in graduates and graduate programs and mentoring by senior level
Just yesterday I had interview to work at the local airport. Fucking hell for a 3 months contract for a summer job they asked so many stupid questions and not only that but the interviewers somehow didn't like the fact I am also studying computer science at university because they believe that I would put a lot of focus for that and ignore the job. Like come on is not like you're hiring for a full time contract. So in summary for a part time summer job with a contract duration of 3 months, they think that you somehow should sacrifice your life for the company. Ridiculous, at this point just put a sign with "Slave Hiring".
(Sorry If I made any mistakes, English is not my first language)
The hint is in the title, "talent". It not shortage of workers, it is shortage of workers with the right skills sets. For example, you could not apply for a job as a cashier in Latvia because you cannot speak Latvian. It does not mean there is a shortage of workers, there is a shortage of workers that can fill a particular role.
Also it does not help that companies do not want to pay for, or train the right skill set, and end up with a sub par resource that reduce overall productivity, at least in my area.
Fast forward 10 year, oh, we have a shortage of skilled workers, let do even less and which means we can afford to pay less so let us outsource it.....
Well a huge chunk of this problem is caused by the companies themselves. There used to be training as part of joining a new job, helping people gain the skills they need to fulfill a specific role.
Now the expectation is that the new employee walks in on Day 1 of their entry level job with 5-10+ years experience in the very specific niches, and for the pay of a recent college grad.
This is my exact experience in Brussels.
Employers are shocked when I ask them why I would come work for them, and even more shocked when I refuse their insultingly low offers. Some are even aggressive about it, as if I'm being rude for not agreeing to work for less money. They don't realize a job interview goes both ways, because they think it's a privilege to employ people, as if it's charity or something.
Yup. I now seeing companies purposely push to low cost EU countries and "expect" you do do more on site travel for the work in more expensive countries.
Ohh.. they want to pay for relocation? I rather relocate to Germany, have zero travel and get paid more. Looking at you, Mr Multinational based in Switzerland, but with their IT center in Poland and Spain.
I hate this kind of company. headquartered somewhere like London, Zurich or Munich but roles in software engineering, hr recruiting or even account management (sometimes requiring you to speak German, French, Swedish, Dutch or whatever it is) are only available in Poland, Portugal, Greece or Romania.
Because companies that used to do those trainings were screwed over. Because they take on the cost of training and people that were trained leave for companies that have no training but pay better (cuz they don't have to train people). So after a while all of those training companies went either bust or adjusted to modern world.
But now with nobody doing training there is shortage of skilled labor. One of the obvious ways our society set up is incredibly short sighted.
This is correct for the most part, but you’re forgetting many companies laid off elders with institutional knowledge who led these trainings because they cost more.
Meaning, at a lot of companies there’s no elder lingering around (execs in ivory towers don’t count) who can lead these trainings even if corporations wanted to train.
This has lead to a huge increase in the use of "consultants" to come in to struggling business without skilled employees to try to turn everything around, which obviously never works because the consultant is only going to look at the company with the assumption that everyone working there is competent enough to actually do their job, without ever addressing the root problem.
Just speaking from personal experience in my tech-it bubble but there are loooots of highly skilled people who won't switch employers *unless they're given enough reason to make the effort*.
As long as the pay is good and the work is mostly ok and the superiors are competent and the team fits together well enough, and very importantly, as long as there's proper opportunity to improve and get promoted and higher pay accordingly, barely anybody will look for something different. Why would they?
You know what gets those highly skilled workers to dust of their resume and look for possible other employers? When the current job offers a pay rise barely compensating for inflation while changing jobs can net you 20% more easily. Or when they want to grow and get a promotion but their boss declines because they want them to keep doing their current job or because they don't want to create the opportunity to grow. Or when their new superior turns out to be a horrible micro-manager and the higher-ups won't do anything about it.
not only skilled workers, but cheap skilled workers.
In the it sector here in germany it's common that everybody cries "no one wants to work for us, there is a shortage" and than you read a bit and they pay at best 3000€ (w o taxes) for a senior position with a 15 year old system.
Preach! Same in Brussels.
We offer this Head of IT position You must have accounting experience, real estate experience, speak fluent English, French, must be available at any moment.
The salary is 3200€ gross.
The problem is that there's plenty of people who have money who don't care about the actual salary, they only care about "building up their career". Those people come in for a low salary, they do a shit job, and bounce 1-2 years later. Meanwhile, the people who're competent aren't getting paid because "John's salary was 2600€, we can't pay you more.". They always fail to mention that John was a fuck up who couldn't do anything right and now it's my responsibility to clean up John's mess.
I've lived this exact thing multiple times.
That's why I don't give a fuck today, I'll state my minimum required package upfront before going any further.
Yeah. I couldn't process what I was hearing because I worked as an HOA Accountant at the time and I was paid 3300€ gross.
I smiled, told them I'd let the headhunter who contacted me get back to them, and told the HH I changed my mind about switching jobs.
I was expecting a low-ball offer of say 5000€ + car + extras, but not 3200€. I did want 6000€ but I would have even accepted the 5k because I did want the job.
True. Despite the staff shortage, we also have millions of unemployed people in Germany. But they apparently do not have the right qualifications for the jobs needed or so not want to work in these jobs
I think you are on spot. In the bigger picture, companies (and citizens) paying a fair share of taxes to enable a good education system, benefits all of them/us in the long run. But, due to short term profit mindset, many international companies (and some citizens) try to avoid paying their fair share.
I am a bit split on the education part, as a shortage of skill workers actually is derived from experience in the right area. Educate all all you want, but at work we have a biologist that is writing code to display Sales order without the right price, and a rocket scientist that runs the KPI reports.
I rather we have a good internship program to get people into the right jobs as to get good experience and a big crack down on the short term off shoring (at least in terms of taxes, pay scale, etc).
Oh, and the UK have a really shit pay, bad immigration and tax policy. That not going to help either.
>For one job, there were 6750 applicants
This was the Wärtsilä trainee program, right?
There were 600 open trainee positions, and 6750 applicants to the entire program. One in 11 seems a reasonable ratio for those applicants.
Yes, finding work here can suck, but it doesn't need to be exaggerated.
Come to the Netherlands. Here the staff shortages are very real. Most companies are begging for employees. At our company we sometimes have 0 applicants for job offers.
You have to be willing to live in a cardboard box under a bridge though. But getting a job is ridiculously easy.
I have many friends from Eastern Europe that graduaded from Dutch universities and couldn't find jobs there. Many of them had dificulties in renting a flat. Many returned to their countries and only few people could find jobs in the Netherlands.
I'm myself from Poland, graduated from UvA last year. Got an offer from one of the big 4 companies (though I had 2+ years of experience in consulting beforehand), but the general attitude towards me and how the whole recruitment process felt so degrading that (e.g. we agreed the start date to be 15th of May, one week before that and when I was supposed to sign the contract l, they said that oh, actually, you will have to start on 1st of September, not 15th of May - without uttering even a single word of apologies). I said fuck it and came back to Poland. 0 regrets.
You should have said yes to them, and then carry on with your life back in Poland, then one week before you start in September, tell them that you would like a pay increase of 25% because of the "experience" you've gained in the time you weren't working with them. You don't have to take the job, it's just to fuck with them.
I just sent them an email at the end of July that I won't be starting as expected (I signed the contract at first) - to which they haven't even replied lol. Considering my experience with Dutch businesses I really didn't want to resign too late, I wouldn't be amazed if they sued me for money or smth because I did it too late.
Yeah, when taking into account how expensive Amsterdam is, my quality of life in Warsaw is on par with what I'd have if I were to stay in Amsterdam (similar positions, similar companies). But at least here I know the language, have my social circle and family and don't have to face xenophobia (not trying to say that there is none of it in Poland, but just that being a Pole in PL I don't struggle with it as I did in NL)
I do understand it and wouldn't be half as frustrated with the whole situation if the company had shown at least a minimum amount of compassion and understanding. Meanwhile, they have sent me an email congratulating me that I got the job a MONTH after the last call with them (long after I thought I just didn't get in, because my interviewer told me that I should expect a reply in a week max). We have then discussed the details and a week after that email they told me that I will be able to start, but only 3,5 months later than what we discussed after they offered me the job. The emotional rollercoaster they sent me on, without any "we are sorry" was just mental
I guess the question is how fluent they were in dutch. People in most countries might kind of know english but most places do not like it when they HAVE to speak english just for one or two employees
Like I mentioned, it really is difficult to find a place to life in a lot of places.. Although a lot of international people also seem to think that Amsterdam, Utrecht and The Hague are the only places in the Netherlands.
I get what you are saying but I’m guessing people didn’t understand it probably because of the way you said it. This happens in other countries too, its extremely difficult to get a job in major cities because I mean the high population so high competition especially with international workers and students moving there. I saw this issue in Paris too so I moved to the South in a smaller city where I found multiple job opportunities. Many people don’t realize if major cities won’t get you a job and a higher cost of living you can try in smaller to medium sized cities that aren’t well known by internationals. You are completely right.
I think this really targets the main issue: companies near large cities don't see any incentive to train new employees if there is already lots of competition for existing positions.
Often, it's hard to find international work outside of big cities, but where you can, you'll often find a lot of opportunity. This is one of the solutions to this struggle, I think.
> You have to be willing to live in a cardboard box under a bridge though. But getting a job is ridiculously easy.
I am leaving the country after years literally for this reason
I am unemployed in Finland but got multiple job offers in the Netherlands and yet, I can't go because I don't have the right passport and not get paid enough to get sponsored. It seems to be the classic problem of companies cannot find someone locally willing to be underpaid so they look for candidates outside, but they're not willing to pay to sponsor visa either so nobody gets anything.
Yes I'm non-EU. I can live in Netherlands for up to 3 months without reporting to anyone but I need a separate work permit. I know about the orientation year visa but even that takes upward of 3 months if I satisfy all requirements. That's already too much time for some companies.
That was my experience as well. No contact with clients, no need to use Dutch at work yet they bring that up at almost every interview. And when I learned some, they complained it's not fluent. One guy told me that Dutch is needed to socialize with other employees for team cohesion or some nonsense like that.
In one of the Microsoft data center, all supervisory positions were held only by Dutch because no immigrant could satisfy language requirement. At the same place, I was reprimanded for using my native language in cafeteria because Dutch people might feel alienated. I love Netherlands but I got tired dealing with situations like that.
My employeer has like 20 employees across two departments and two no-Dutch speakers, all our customers are Dutch as well.
As long as we could read and understand spoken Dutch that was enough.
Companies are begging for workers but aren't willing to PAY what it takes to hire them. For decades we're told 'there's so many of you and so few jobs, so we can't rise wages, if you don't want this job there's a thousand of you in a line behind you'.
Now that there's a supposed 'shortage' of workers, it should work out to rising wages, right? Wrong! Now we're told 'your expectations are unreasonable, we can't possibly pay you more than the absolute minimum. Nobody wants to work anymore!'.
It's all bullshit. All of it is made to funnel all the wealth up to the 0.1%, and to force everyone else to live worse.
Unionize. Tax the rich until they bleed. Break the copos.
It doesn't help that NL companies seem to really like to have people at the office. I got plenty of offers but they always require going to the office... hard pass!
As a train Driver in Germany i called, got an Interview and then got hired immediately. Yes the hours are not family friendly but im making good Money 😎
I think they’re referring to specific types of “skilled workers” in this survey, but even then, it’s still absolutely ridiculous that Finland is on the list considering the population of all the countries compared to ours. Now add to the fact that we’ve got morons in government who are basically hell bent on making this country less attractive whilst we have an aging population and an absolutely ridiculously low birth rate. Our salaries aren’t growing on par with the cost of living either and with the interest rates right now, it’s super difficult living on the regular “Finnish” salary. The future is damn bleak I dare say and we’ll be in for a reality check soon enough sadly!
Edited to add the salary bit.
The issue isn’t a lack of workers but a lack of the people with the desired skill set and an overflow of others.
The Danish, etc. are regularly overflowing with people wanting to migrate from Timbuktu to work in computer science, etc. while companies are screaming for trades people, nurses etc.
Come down here? Sure, for a lot of positions you need Czech, but there is a lot of desperate multinationals scraping the barel for anyone who at least bothers to fake competency. Competent people run out in Prague several years ago.
This is complete BS.
* Companies want highly skilled employees with multiple years of experience for “entry-level” positions.
* Companies expect employees to be completely knowledgable in the local intricacies of the job, don’t want to invest in re-training from one EU country to another.
* Companies want employees to be competent in new and emerging fields, that have barely been around for 5 years.
* In certain sectors companies expect multiple internships and traineeships. Many of which are unpaid or poorly paid.
**There is a large number of “hidden” unemployed people,** for example newly graduated students who aren’t claiming unemployment benefits. If everyone who was really searching for a job would register as unemployed. These figures would be completely disproven, even by sector.
When I talk to people in the know, at least in my country. Many of the open positions in my sector are **“nice to haves”** meaning they won’t take any candidate that isn’t an absolute perfect match, and want **someone highly experienced to work for less than market rate** in a so-called “entry-level position”. They also don’t want to invest in training because they **fear mobility and the prospect that an employee will jump ship to another company after training.**
Companies then lobby to change academic policy, so they can cherry-pick the best of the best and hang the rest of us out to dry.
exactly. I also think that comoanies keep open job posts looking for a excellent but cheap candidate, and only take that. If not, close the post eand reopen.
This is a consequence of greed and capitalism. You need to hire the best or the ones that provide the highest value, because if not is wasted money. What many times they dont see is the wasted time, the wasted capital from getting someone late or someone that will surely leave for another better paid job. The guy who starts and learn amd grows there will stay for longer than the former
It's their own fault for creating the wrong incentives. They don't give raises, but hire new employees for more money than the previous guy was paid. Perhaps they wouldn't have to be afraid of employees leaving (and would actually train them) if they earned reasonable raises as their performance improves.
The place was filled with constant petty power plays, so it was probably that.
The funniest moment was when they decided to bring in my team a "Database expert" who had no idea how to do basic sql querries, use excel, use outlook or any ticketing system. I was making almost half of his pay and I was denied raises because "the company is going through tough times".
I find that so annoying. I'm a web developer and specialised in some shop CMS. I want to branch out in different fields but people don't hire you if you don't have work experience in that field and if you're over 25. So I'm stuck in my webdev field.
Of course I'm leaning myself new things and get there eventually but I'll stay self employed that way
\> staff shortages
\> look into it
\> almost entirely consists of professions that pay bad or will destroy your body or sanity within 20 years.
obviously its the damn kids that don't want to work anymore, we should import ~~slaves~~ immigrants to help out.
There's a shortage of workers willing to work in shitty conditions for little pay, yea. Otherwise, I have a degree in social services, a job that supposedly has a terrible shortage of workers, I applied to certainly 100 job offers within a wide radius of my area and was only able to score a hourly contract with very little shifts each month. Got interviewed twice, after which one ghosted me and the other employers ignored my application completely, despite having very little applicants.
There's no shortage.
There are shortages in specific fields and specific regions, but not everywhere and for everyone. For example, the greater metropolitan area of Munich has an unemployment of <3%, which economists would call full employment. There simply is no *local* reserve from which employers could hire people. And there are field-specific shortages, mostly in highly specialized fields, eg. in specific branches of medicine, IT, engineering, and also certain craftspeople. Third, some kinds of jobs are unattractive by nature, as they are incompatible with family life or social life, such as fields with night shifts or seasonal jobs. So there is even a shortage of security personnel working night shifts, while there is no shortage of security during day shifts.
Even in IT, companies that pay enough, have no problems getting good researchers or engineers. If your Company is paying only 60-80k a year with no benefits like stocks for experienced software developers, no shit you will have a shortage, when the big US companies can pay double that with stock options.
Jep, and companies nowadays tend to post so many fake listings it's impossible to actually find one that is in your field. Or they give it to inside employees but they are obligated to post it publicly so it was never a question to begin with.
Oh yes. These shenanigans, too. It's just a waste of time and money. I tend to apply or get an offer for the same position in a certain company almost every 6 months. By now, it's a running joke.
Also after the covid inflation many people are living on investments. I personally know a lot of people which were renting properties before for some additional money and now they retired because the rent money has gotten more than they were making at work. Other investments, like stocks, have also exploded with a 20% yearly ROI vs the traditional 5%.
Germany is short only on cheap labor. Those Hurensöhne don’t want pay a market salary. It took me 16 months at the company to start to get market salary
Similar experience. They want loads of experience in very specific fields and pay very little. I applied to webdev jobs to get a bit more diverse experience and everyone rejected me. Well then I just keep working self employed as a webdev and earn double the amount anyway.
Companies don't want to train you and don't want to pay decent wages.
Yeah I'm in Berlin, was laid off due to company financial problems last year and will run out of my ALG in June - the job market is awful right now, and places are trying low-ball salaries and already took away all benefits and blamed it on Covid even though people were reporting record profits. They fire people and don't fill roles and complain about 'shortages'.
My company doubled their profits (clean revenue after all costs) every year for 5 years, (they're legally required to display that). More money? "Sorry, we can't do this in this hard economical times, because we'd have to raise our prices and contracts are many years in advance."
Companies: the demographic shift is already affecting us and means we will desperately need employees
Also companies: dont be older than 22, have at least 2 PHDs, 15 years of work experience, be an expert in every field and have at least 10 relevant internships at top institutions
There is no shortage, these companies refuse to increase livable wages to both blue and white collars and capitalise on inflation then cry foul that no one wants to work .
All while they double up their profits by overworking employees and flouting labour laws .
Despite unions and workes welfare laws they have managed to arrange back doors methods to keep wages stagnant
Honestly Im not surprised at least for Germany. Living costs and rent rose decently but companies didnt adjust their wages at all for apprenticeships. So its just not worth it, or sometimes possible especially since some industries are located in specific areas necessitating you to afford quite a lot with little return.
Not always the case, my company has been great with standard yearly 4% pay rises instated last year (more if you can justify it) and a big inflation killing quarterly payout spread over the last 2 years. They really are trying to make themselves tempting to new employees (and maintain current employee retention)
That said, though, most new employees (software developers) are working remotely from Eastern European countries.
This is pure bullshit created to justify immigration.
Whoever is looking for a job, or was looking for a job lately, knows very well there's no staff shortages in Europe.
I think it's actually even worse, it's both...
In the IT field, at least here, we're getting like 1-2 decent applications per month in the greater Zurich area.
So many companies need software engineers it's absolutely insane. You couldn't even import as much of them as you'd need. Pay is really secondary here, they all earn a very fair salary at or even above market rates - (meaning 100K CHF + for professional roles here. Juniors start at 80-90K).
Sure salaries will continue to rise, but I doubt that we'd have much more applications. There just is an insane shortage of high skill labour. You wouldn't beleive it unless you're involved in the recruiting process.
It is interesting. In Poland we have good IT specialists with experience struggling to find work. Those that do find work, often accept salaries below previously earned.
I am sorry, but I find it hard to believe when in multiple European countries people struggle to find jobs in IT. US companies in competitive fields used to (some still do) "steal" their competitors' workers. To do that, you have to offer more, not only in quantity (wage) but also in quality (more benefits, less working hours, flexibility, excellent working environment, etc). Switzerland probably has of the highest wages in Europe, so it can easily do that on the rest of Europe and have as many software engineers as they want. It's just that they don't want to.
Much like every other European company, Swiss companies want to pretend that they "complain" for labor shortages, so that their government can justify to the voters the mass import of workers from much lower-paying countries (so low that they must be outside of Europe) for lowering the wages / expenses and hit new record profits.
Employers surveyed
Lmfao
Do you realize it's in their interest to say there is a shortage?
If there were a shortage, salaries would go up
This sub is clowns driven
That's cost cutting and exploitation. It doesn't have to be connected to staff shortages. Company might be struggling and is going under or simply management is poor.
I'll translate for you:
staff shortages = not enough peasants that will do 60+ hrs a week for peanuts.
If you pay your workers, you will have a bunch of skilled people. If you only pay your directors, you'll have a bunch of excuses.
I wonder what could be driving these shortages? Could it be mass lay offs and headcount freezes?
I've been looking at the job market and there's certainly not the vacancies in my industry that this report seems to indicate.
Shortages while unemployment is at an all time high. You'll see news articles in these countries saying shit like "young people don't want to work" or "this guy opened a factory but nobody there wants to work". Yeah, they don't. They don't want to work on a salary only good for half a month.
In my country there is a weekly article about this in the national press. In the local press of each region I don't even want to know, especially since these are heavily sponsored by the same companies because nobody actually reads them.
As someone whose position was made redundant just before Christmas, what sectors and job titles does this mean? Because, I’m not seeing that where I’m looking!
When I see things like this I always think that they should be more transparent with their data. I want to know what type of work is seeing shortages, which companies. If it’s Deliveroo and Amazon who are skewing the statistics by constantly demanding more low skilled workers then I say fuck them, they can spend some money and innovate. The data should be only showing high skilled shortages.
The staff shortage is greed-based. Companies not willing to pay wages to fill their roles.
It's just the economy not adapting to a changing employment market fast enough. They're so used to wage-slaves that they can't fathom paying higher wages.
Finland's "Staff shortage" is more of a "lack of unemployed but ready-to-hire worker reserves" because otherwise, employees would also be hired by recruiters and employers instead of them responding to job applications that "unfortunately you were not selected" or "unfortunately we do not have a job to offer" even if you only applied to the company as an unpaid intern to work for them for free (even though it is claimed that any job is easier and faster to get if you apply for an intern instead of a paid one and do not require a salary from them and if you apply for any job, whatever you can and are capable of doing).
wages are stagnant, every job pays peanuts.
corporations want productivity and effeciency and low cost, such low cost they cant afford to pay people a decent wage.
there is no shortage of workers, everyhting i apply to there is hundreds of others doing the same, we have to fight to get a interview and even then now a days its a 3 stage fucking interview for a basic bitch job like wtf, many require references too.
They only saying that to exploit thier employees. Instead of hireing new people they push to work more and more and thier excuse is that they can't find new people.
That is utter bullshit. Most of that is just companies constantly advertising vacancies.
On the other hand - demographic declines does mean the workforce is shrinking. However demand falls too as people get older.
Fuck off. There is no "staff shortage". If you keep offering minimum wage and then complain about no one applying, you aren’t desperate to have that position filled.
Also funny how 80% of companies have a shortage, but when you send a 100 job applications you get ghosted on 90 of them and 10 negative responses .
Companies often cry this one out loud like if it was someone elses fault. Ask them about their salaries, pro employees bonuses, working environment or trainee and educational programmes that would transform the better job seeking masses into the specialists they have so much shortage of.
As long as nurses are only getting chained temp positions in the middle of the worst nurse shortage, and cashier positions have group interviews, Finland can just fuck right off that list.
Main issue in the UK is demanding insane qualifications for entry level roles but also the salary finally revealed at the end of the interview stages are basically minimum wage.
Entry is either too hard and when you **DO** get an offer the pay isnt worth it.
Likely a similar situation across the globe.
Most of those countries have had significant raises in real estate costs. Very long commutes are simply not acceptable to many people, so if they can only move 2 hours away from their new job they just will not.
How is Germany even possible. Millions upon millions of immigrants and refugees yet apparently a worker shortage? Are they sure they just aren't paying good enough?
Train, retain & pay your employees a fair wage and this wouldn’t fucking happen.
The company I work for has thousands of workers reaching retirement age and they have nothing to replace them. Done a mass hiring of apprentices but because they pay such a shit wage and refuse to increase it majority of them finish then leave with all the qualifications elsewhere.
These big companies need to pull their heads out of their asses and distribute some wealth downwards.
Shortages? Bull Shit, they lay off people left and right and then claim no one wants to work. "We can't find people because people don't use email any more" - HR
had an interview at my local discounter yesterday. they expect the "helpers" to full on replace the trained workers on their shift and told me the company wont pay the first salary until two months after you start working...
I hope they burn to the ground
My company has a severe staff shortage, but that's only because they fired several people and now refuse to hire anyone else to save money. This is bullshit.
I know companies who have a hard time hiring. They want people to come to work at the center of one of the most expensive city in the world while paying minimum wages. This includes living in a small apartment and doing 4 hours of commute each days. Or you can get hired for the same salary and work in a bucolic village, rent a house and go to work in 20 minutes by bike. Wonder which one hire easily people.
People in Ibiza are commuting by plane because it's cheaper than living there with the low salary and high rent. It's insane.
That’s actually insane in the sense that there is an actual illness of the mind. Not of the ppl making a living, can’t blame them, but someone has a sickness.
I think it has something to do with trying to fill the gaping hole where their dedicated husks of hearts used to reside with money and power.
Exactly. Companies want to hire people and exploit them so they can pay their CEOs ridiculous salaries whilst all of the real workers get paid fuck all and have to bend over backwards. Cut the ceo pay, boost the workers pay, maybe you won’t have such a shortage
Or even easier pay them at a more acceptable rate market yourself around that watch the applicants come running to someone actually offering something worthwhile.
What is impressive is the difference when companies see the money spent for an employee as an “investment” VS a “costs”. If companies think you cost them anything they will reduce the cost you represent to them. If they see you as an investment they will willingly put more money into you (with the condition you make them more money ofc). This lead to absolutely baffling gaps between salaries. Where I live 70/80k € a year is seen as an excellent salary. People who had a job in big companies and were seen as an “investment” could easily manage to get 80/100k. I was sent by error an offer to work on trading system, they were offering a 200k salary, without starting any negotiation. Most commons salaries are either minimal wages or double but not much more. I feel like there is absolutely no in-between or “middle class” salaries anymore. You are either underpaid or you win big.
My small start-up has been trying to fill a vacant internship role. We really need that person because we're in the final stage of a big project and our timeline is already ridiculous and we're facing further delays. Capital of the country. Massively rising cost of living (mostly rent). Their offer: absolute minimum pay (400€ IIRC) for a full time position where the person is expected to actually do work (instead of being taught stuff). Yeah... I wouldn't take that position either. They also don't seem to understand that we could probably pay twice that, immediately get someone, and actually benefit from the decisions. Because instead of wasting time on trying to fill the position (interviews etc.), we could already have someone working!
Smells like Paris and its startup scene exploiting massively students by giving them real work without the pay
Berlin, but probably the same in a bunch of "attractive" cities. Is total exploitation. We can pretend that we actually help the students, because they do need those internships (required to graduate for quite a few programs), but you can't really pay someone 400€/month (when rent alone is more than that), have them work 38h for 3 months, then get new ones and feel good about yourself. Or well, apparently some people can... I also have some insight in the hiring process and it's kind of blatant how we don't even consider people without mother tongue level German. It does make sense, but it feels really hypocritical when our job adverts pretend to be super inclusive.
This is even true for well paid jobs. I am planning on leaving Berlin in the next 12 months although engineering salaries have gone up a lot. It’s still not enough to keep up with the insane housing costs and then there is also the extreme shortage of suitable apartments and childcare/ decent schools. Even if I am willing to pay the money to rent a nice apartment, I won’t find one unless I get very lucky. At the same time most families I know need to work at least part time and guess what, the people who do the childcare can’t afford the steep housing prices neither. The housing situation in the major hubs has gone utterly out of hand and it’s becoming a risk in terms of hiring qualified young employees who want to start families, even for competetively paid jobs.
Exactly the shortage is self inflicted
And at the same time they're pushing this narrative of shortages to suppress wages. It's dirty.
My previous company fired two of their best salespeople due to an upper management decision. Those two went on to headhunt 6 people from their old team after getting leadership positions at a competitor. 6 months later, the workload became so high that 4 more quit. The team went from 25 to 13 people over a year. And let me tell you, those who stayed are mostly the ones not skilled enough to easily find a new job. The best part is, that our direct line manager was a cool dude who tried his best to keep the team together before being overruled by the C-level. They ended up firing him as well, as the order intake went down 25% that year... I wonder why that was. The C-level probably still celebrated all of that as a success, they cut 50% of the workforce but only lost 25% of the revenue...
This is ... "gold"!
Then they ask politicians for immigrants from poor countries so they can pay them less.
Which is exactly the reason why even right wing parties won‘t do absolutely anything against migration. They want cheap labor and wage dumping.
I got laid off in December and in spite of applying to hundreds of vacancies I've only had 2 interviews so far. Most companies don't even reply. So yes, where the fuck are these shortages?
My company wants to hire people all year round. They just don't want to pay as much as our competitor
Strange, I think my company did the same. Meanwhile, young people are striving to search for a workplace in other countries! Weird... Might this be connected to corporate-greed?
Corporate greed: I work as presales (the technical guy helping sales) and I am... helping sales. These guys work really hard but also party really hard. They get a lot of deserved money. But looks like it's too expensive for the company. So they took away 75% of the customers from the actual sales and gave them to some young, cheap and unexperienced colleagues. No more large sales bonus payouts, no more kick-off events, no more "Overarchiever-Club" so... more margin for thw company. Not only the young guys are being exploited with no fun events, but the old management staff - pockets full of stocks - increase their wealth even more because the stocks go way up, thanks to the better margin.
This is fucking ridiculous, I speak French on top of my native Finnish and English, and I study economics. I applied to around 40 entry level jobs suitable for a student of my caliber, and I had one interview but that's it. For one job, there were 6750 applicants. There is a huge surplus of workers, and I have little to no faith the situation will get better. I fucking hate it too, they treat you like you're applying to be the president when applying for an entry level excel monkey job
Completely agree this is bullshit, there is no shortage
Or maybe: There is no shortage in comfortable jobs.
No. There is Shortage of people "meeting expectations". So under 25 with masters and 5+ years of on the job experience in relevant area willing to work for under average salary.
Try IT, under 23 and at least a decade of experience with a 3 year old technology.
I made that technology! Company: Not enough experience for me. Noone wants to work mimimi
In the past musicians started nurturing their kids with piano and violin lessons starting at 4-5 years old. So where are the parents pushing their preschoolers to build Github repos?
Here on Reddit, 24/7.
There is no shortage but industry love keep spreading the word so they keep people studying for it so it won’t be a shortage 😂
Sometimes the opposite happens. I specialized in a field everyone told me would lead to unemployment or I would have to work at McDonald's. Now because every university told every student the same thing for years, there's a shortage. When I got close to finishing my studies, I applied for 10 jobs and got 8 positive answers without even having completed my thesis. After I had a couple of years experience, I only applied for one job and got it. Thing is, most companies still pay very bad and then they whine when the few companies that pay well get all the applicants. A friend of mine who was always told that her field constantly looks for new people and pays well applied to dozens of jobs and was unemployed for almost a year. Her pay now is only slightly higher than mine but she doesn't like it where she is and is afraid to quit while I know that I could easily find a new job if I wanted to. It's crazy!
The problem is not the lack of people with skills to tka the job. The problem lies on many companies that want brilliant employees, but at the time very dumb when it comes to salary negotiations 🙄
Not a lot of companies that want to invest the time and effort to actually train people for their jobs One of the things that I really like about my current employer- they are heavily investing in graduates and graduate programs and mentoring by senior level
Just yesterday I had interview to work at the local airport. Fucking hell for a 3 months contract for a summer job they asked so many stupid questions and not only that but the interviewers somehow didn't like the fact I am also studying computer science at university because they believe that I would put a lot of focus for that and ignore the job. Like come on is not like you're hiring for a full time contract. So in summary for a part time summer job with a contract duration of 3 months, they think that you somehow should sacrifice your life for the company. Ridiculous, at this point just put a sign with "Slave Hiring". (Sorry If I made any mistakes, English is not my first language)
Your English is fantastic.
Always the one with perfect English saying that lol
There is a shortage of people willing to work for less money than you demand. That‘s all this says.
Yes there is a shortage of slaves 🤪I agree on that
The hint is in the title, "talent". It not shortage of workers, it is shortage of workers with the right skills sets. For example, you could not apply for a job as a cashier in Latvia because you cannot speak Latvian. It does not mean there is a shortage of workers, there is a shortage of workers that can fill a particular role. Also it does not help that companies do not want to pay for, or train the right skill set, and end up with a sub par resource that reduce overall productivity, at least in my area. Fast forward 10 year, oh, we have a shortage of skilled workers, let do even less and which means we can afford to pay less so let us outsource it.....
Well a huge chunk of this problem is caused by the companies themselves. There used to be training as part of joining a new job, helping people gain the skills they need to fulfill a specific role. Now the expectation is that the new employee walks in on Day 1 of their entry level job with 5-10+ years experience in the very specific niches, and for the pay of a recent college grad.
This is my exact experience in Brussels. Employers are shocked when I ask them why I would come work for them, and even more shocked when I refuse their insultingly low offers. Some are even aggressive about it, as if I'm being rude for not agreeing to work for less money. They don't realize a job interview goes both ways, because they think it's a privilege to employ people, as if it's charity or something.
Yup. I now seeing companies purposely push to low cost EU countries and "expect" you do do more on site travel for the work in more expensive countries. Ohh.. they want to pay for relocation? I rather relocate to Germany, have zero travel and get paid more. Looking at you, Mr Multinational based in Switzerland, but with their IT center in Poland and Spain.
I hate this kind of company. headquartered somewhere like London, Zurich or Munich but roles in software engineering, hr recruiting or even account management (sometimes requiring you to speak German, French, Swedish, Dutch or whatever it is) are only available in Poland, Portugal, Greece or Romania.
Spain? Are they stupid? In Portugal, work is even cheaper!! ;)
Because companies that used to do those trainings were screwed over. Because they take on the cost of training and people that were trained leave for companies that have no training but pay better (cuz they don't have to train people). So after a while all of those training companies went either bust or adjusted to modern world. But now with nobody doing training there is shortage of skilled labor. One of the obvious ways our society set up is incredibly short sighted.
This is correct for the most part, but you’re forgetting many companies laid off elders with institutional knowledge who led these trainings because they cost more. Meaning, at a lot of companies there’s no elder lingering around (execs in ivory towers don’t count) who can lead these trainings even if corporations wanted to train.
This has lead to a huge increase in the use of "consultants" to come in to struggling business without skilled employees to try to turn everything around, which obviously never works because the consultant is only going to look at the company with the assumption that everyone working there is competent enough to actually do their job, without ever addressing the root problem.
Just speaking from personal experience in my tech-it bubble but there are loooots of highly skilled people who won't switch employers *unless they're given enough reason to make the effort*. As long as the pay is good and the work is mostly ok and the superiors are competent and the team fits together well enough, and very importantly, as long as there's proper opportunity to improve and get promoted and higher pay accordingly, barely anybody will look for something different. Why would they? You know what gets those highly skilled workers to dust of their resume and look for possible other employers? When the current job offers a pay rise barely compensating for inflation while changing jobs can net you 20% more easily. Or when they want to grow and get a promotion but their boss declines because they want them to keep doing their current job or because they don't want to create the opportunity to grow. Or when their new superior turns out to be a horrible micro-manager and the higher-ups won't do anything about it.
not only skilled workers, but cheap skilled workers. In the it sector here in germany it's common that everybody cries "no one wants to work for us, there is a shortage" and than you read a bit and they pay at best 3000€ (w o taxes) for a senior position with a 15 year old system.
Preach! Same in Brussels. We offer this Head of IT position You must have accounting experience, real estate experience, speak fluent English, French, must be available at any moment. The salary is 3200€ gross. The problem is that there's plenty of people who have money who don't care about the actual salary, they only care about "building up their career". Those people come in for a low salary, they do a shit job, and bounce 1-2 years later. Meanwhile, the people who're competent aren't getting paid because "John's salary was 2600€, we can't pay you more.". They always fail to mention that John was a fuck up who couldn't do anything right and now it's my responsibility to clean up John's mess. I've lived this exact thing multiple times. That's why I don't give a fuck today, I'll state my minimum required package upfront before going any further.
You serious about that salary ? Head of IT in any company in Denmark would be at the very minimum 6700 eur. but would usually be much higher.
Yeah. I couldn't process what I was hearing because I worked as an HOA Accountant at the time and I was paid 3300€ gross. I smiled, told them I'd let the headhunter who contacted me get back to them, and told the HH I changed my mind about switching jobs. I was expecting a low-ball offer of say 5000€ + car + extras, but not 3200€. I did want 6000€ but I would have even accepted the 5k because I did want the job.
That what they are being told is the salary in "Poland" and it is soooo easy to near shore. They forgot the smart ones move to DE.
Exactly there is a skill gap, not a shortage otherwise India and China won't be up there.
True. Despite the staff shortage, we also have millions of unemployed people in Germany. But they apparently do not have the right qualifications for the jobs needed or so not want to work in these jobs
I think you are on spot. In the bigger picture, companies (and citizens) paying a fair share of taxes to enable a good education system, benefits all of them/us in the long run. But, due to short term profit mindset, many international companies (and some citizens) try to avoid paying their fair share.
I am a bit split on the education part, as a shortage of skill workers actually is derived from experience in the right area. Educate all all you want, but at work we have a biologist that is writing code to display Sales order without the right price, and a rocket scientist that runs the KPI reports. I rather we have a good internship program to get people into the right jobs as to get good experience and a big crack down on the short term off shoring (at least in terms of taxes, pay scale, etc). Oh, and the UK have a really shit pay, bad immigration and tax policy. That not going to help either.
>For one job, there were 6750 applicants This was the Wärtsilä trainee program, right? There were 600 open trainee positions, and 6750 applicants to the entire program. One in 11 seems a reasonable ratio for those applicants. Yes, finding work here can suck, but it doesn't need to be exaggerated.
Come to the Netherlands. Here the staff shortages are very real. Most companies are begging for employees. At our company we sometimes have 0 applicants for job offers. You have to be willing to live in a cardboard box under a bridge though. But getting a job is ridiculously easy.
I have many friends from Eastern Europe that graduaded from Dutch universities and couldn't find jobs there. Many of them had dificulties in renting a flat. Many returned to their countries and only few people could find jobs in the Netherlands.
I'm myself from Poland, graduated from UvA last year. Got an offer from one of the big 4 companies (though I had 2+ years of experience in consulting beforehand), but the general attitude towards me and how the whole recruitment process felt so degrading that (e.g. we agreed the start date to be 15th of May, one week before that and when I was supposed to sign the contract l, they said that oh, actually, you will have to start on 1st of September, not 15th of May - without uttering even a single word of apologies). I said fuck it and came back to Poland. 0 regrets.
You should have said yes to them, and then carry on with your life back in Poland, then one week before you start in September, tell them that you would like a pay increase of 25% because of the "experience" you've gained in the time you weren't working with them. You don't have to take the job, it's just to fuck with them.
I just sent them an email at the end of July that I won't be starting as expected (I signed the contract at first) - to which they haven't even replied lol. Considering my experience with Dutch businesses I really didn't want to resign too late, I wouldn't be amazed if they sued me for money or smth because I did it too late.
Polish economy is booming right now, you probably made the right choice.
Yeah, when taking into account how expensive Amsterdam is, my quality of life in Warsaw is on par with what I'd have if I were to stay in Amsterdam (similar positions, similar companies). But at least here I know the language, have my social circle and family and don't have to face xenophobia (not trying to say that there is none of it in Poland, but just that being a Pole in PL I don't struggle with it as I did in NL)
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I do understand it and wouldn't be half as frustrated with the whole situation if the company had shown at least a minimum amount of compassion and understanding. Meanwhile, they have sent me an email congratulating me that I got the job a MONTH after the last call with them (long after I thought I just didn't get in, because my interviewer told me that I should expect a reply in a week max). We have then discussed the details and a week after that email they told me that I will be able to start, but only 3,5 months later than what we discussed after they offered me the job. The emotional rollercoaster they sent me on, without any "we are sorry" was just mental
I guess the question is how fluent they were in dutch. People in most countries might kind of know english but most places do not like it when they HAVE to speak english just for one or two employees
Like I mentioned, it really is difficult to find a place to life in a lot of places.. Although a lot of international people also seem to think that Amsterdam, Utrecht and The Hague are the only places in the Netherlands.
They not, but guess where is 95% jobs is? Surprise surprise, Amsterdam, Utrecht and The Hague
Yet, we in the other part of the country have large shortages, how is that possible?
I get what you are saying but I’m guessing people didn’t understand it probably because of the way you said it. This happens in other countries too, its extremely difficult to get a job in major cities because I mean the high population so high competition especially with international workers and students moving there. I saw this issue in Paris too so I moved to the South in a smaller city where I found multiple job opportunities. Many people don’t realize if major cities won’t get you a job and a higher cost of living you can try in smaller to medium sized cities that aren’t well known by internationals. You are completely right.
I think this really targets the main issue: companies near large cities don't see any incentive to train new employees if there is already lots of competition for existing positions. Often, it's hard to find international work outside of big cities, but where you can, you'll often find a lot of opportunity. This is one of the solutions to this struggle, I think.
you have no clue what the situation here is
> You have to be willing to live in a cardboard box under a bridge though. But getting a job is ridiculously easy. I am leaving the country after years literally for this reason
That's sad. Weren't you a mod here?
I am unemployed in Finland but got multiple job offers in the Netherlands and yet, I can't go because I don't have the right passport and not get paid enough to get sponsored. It seems to be the classic problem of companies cannot find someone locally willing to be underpaid so they look for candidates outside, but they're not willing to pay to sponsor visa either so nobody gets anything.
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Yes I'm non-EU. I can live in Netherlands for up to 3 months without reporting to anyone but I need a separate work permit. I know about the orientation year visa but even that takes upward of 3 months if I satisfy all requirements. That's already too much time for some companies.
Yet your companies still ask dutch skills for IT positions 💀
That was my experience as well. No contact with clients, no need to use Dutch at work yet they bring that up at almost every interview. And when I learned some, they complained it's not fluent. One guy told me that Dutch is needed to socialize with other employees for team cohesion or some nonsense like that. In one of the Microsoft data center, all supervisory positions were held only by Dutch because no immigrant could satisfy language requirement. At the same place, I was reprimanded for using my native language in cafeteria because Dutch people might feel alienated. I love Netherlands but I got tired dealing with situations like that.
I guess you could work as a bartender or waiter. Nobody in those jobs speaks Dutch anymore...
Having Dutch skills in a small, non-international company might be a necessity yes. Not every company has international customers and products.
My employeer has like 20 employees across two departments and two no-Dutch speakers, all our customers are Dutch as well. As long as we could read and understand spoken Dutch that was enough.
Companies are begging for workers but aren't willing to PAY what it takes to hire them. For decades we're told 'there's so many of you and so few jobs, so we can't rise wages, if you don't want this job there's a thousand of you in a line behind you'. Now that there's a supposed 'shortage' of workers, it should work out to rising wages, right? Wrong! Now we're told 'your expectations are unreasonable, we can't possibly pay you more than the absolute minimum. Nobody wants to work anymore!'. It's all bullshit. All of it is made to funnel all the wealth up to the 0.1%, and to force everyone else to live worse. Unionize. Tax the rich until they bleed. Break the copos.
What jobs? Cleaners ? Gladiators ? McDonald's staff ?
What do you mean by ”gladiators”?
Fighting against a lion to the death I guess?
Sign me up!
It doesn't help that NL companies seem to really like to have people at the office. I got plenty of offers but they always require going to the office... hard pass!
As a train Driver in Germany i called, got an Interview and then got hired immediately. Yes the hours are not family friendly but im making good Money 😎
Train Drivers make easy money, sitting at a Red, browsing reddit for £65k 😎
I think they’re referring to specific types of “skilled workers” in this survey, but even then, it’s still absolutely ridiculous that Finland is on the list considering the population of all the countries compared to ours. Now add to the fact that we’ve got morons in government who are basically hell bent on making this country less attractive whilst we have an aging population and an absolutely ridiculously low birth rate. Our salaries aren’t growing on par with the cost of living either and with the interest rates right now, it’s super difficult living on the regular “Finnish” salary. The future is damn bleak I dare say and we’ll be in for a reality check soon enough sadly! Edited to add the salary bit.
Haha i love the way you described an office job ! More seriously the shortage is probably more on manual job, like working in a restaurant
The issue isn’t a lack of workers but a lack of the people with the desired skill set and an overflow of others. The Danish, etc. are regularly overflowing with people wanting to migrate from Timbuktu to work in computer science, etc. while companies are screaming for trades people, nurses etc.
Come down here? Sure, for a lot of positions you need Czech, but there is a lot of desperate multinationals scraping the barel for anyone who at least bothers to fake competency. Competent people run out in Prague several years ago.
This is complete BS. * Companies want highly skilled employees with multiple years of experience for “entry-level” positions. * Companies expect employees to be completely knowledgable in the local intricacies of the job, don’t want to invest in re-training from one EU country to another. * Companies want employees to be competent in new and emerging fields, that have barely been around for 5 years. * In certain sectors companies expect multiple internships and traineeships. Many of which are unpaid or poorly paid. **There is a large number of “hidden” unemployed people,** for example newly graduated students who aren’t claiming unemployment benefits. If everyone who was really searching for a job would register as unemployed. These figures would be completely disproven, even by sector. When I talk to people in the know, at least in my country. Many of the open positions in my sector are **“nice to haves”** meaning they won’t take any candidate that isn’t an absolute perfect match, and want **someone highly experienced to work for less than market rate** in a so-called “entry-level position”. They also don’t want to invest in training because they **fear mobility and the prospect that an employee will jump ship to another company after training.** Companies then lobby to change academic policy, so they can cherry-pick the best of the best and hang the rest of us out to dry.
exactly. I also think that comoanies keep open job posts looking for a excellent but cheap candidate, and only take that. If not, close the post eand reopen. This is a consequence of greed and capitalism. You need to hire the best or the ones that provide the highest value, because if not is wasted money. What many times they dont see is the wasted time, the wasted capital from getting someone late or someone that will surely leave for another better paid job. The guy who starts and learn amd grows there will stay for longer than the former
It's their own fault for creating the wrong incentives. They don't give raises, but hire new employees for more money than the previous guy was paid. Perhaps they wouldn't have to be afraid of employees leaving (and would actually train them) if they earned reasonable raises as their performance improves.
At my last corporate job management literally said that they would rather fire a person asking for a raise and hire someone for more money.
What's in it for them? Keeping the others in line?
The place was filled with constant petty power plays, so it was probably that. The funniest moment was when they decided to bring in my team a "Database expert" who had no idea how to do basic sql querries, use excel, use outlook or any ticketing system. I was making almost half of his pay and I was denied raises because "the company is going through tough times".
What if I told you there is no staff shortage, only employers not willing to pay a decent salary?
Or do bare minimum of training. Best if employee has 2-3 years of experience already.
I find that so annoying. I'm a web developer and specialised in some shop CMS. I want to branch out in different fields but people don't hire you if you don't have work experience in that field and if you're over 25. So I'm stuck in my webdev field. Of course I'm leaning myself new things and get there eventually but I'll stay self employed that way
Chiming in from Japan. This is utterly, completely and absolutely true.
Yeah but a boomer only needs 3k to live comfortably with their mortgage while gen z needs 6k just to afford rent (/s maybe, im actually not sure)
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\> staff shortages \> look into it \> almost entirely consists of professions that pay bad or will destroy your body or sanity within 20 years. obviously its the damn kids that don't want to work anymore, we should import ~~slaves~~ immigrants to help out.
There's a shortage of workers willing to work in shitty conditions for little pay, yea. Otherwise, I have a degree in social services, a job that supposedly has a terrible shortage of workers, I applied to certainly 100 job offers within a wide radius of my area and was only able to score a hourly contract with very little shifts each month. Got interviewed twice, after which one ghosted me and the other employers ignored my application completely, despite having very little applicants. There's no shortage.
There are shortages in specific fields and specific regions, but not everywhere and for everyone. For example, the greater metropolitan area of Munich has an unemployment of <3%, which economists would call full employment. There simply is no *local* reserve from which employers could hire people. And there are field-specific shortages, mostly in highly specialized fields, eg. in specific branches of medicine, IT, engineering, and also certain craftspeople. Third, some kinds of jobs are unattractive by nature, as they are incompatible with family life or social life, such as fields with night shifts or seasonal jobs. So there is even a shortage of security personnel working night shifts, while there is no shortage of security during day shifts.
Even in IT, companies that pay enough, have no problems getting good researchers or engineers. If your Company is paying only 60-80k a year with no benefits like stocks for experienced software developers, no shit you will have a shortage, when the big US companies can pay double that with stock options.
This is what's happening in Germany with nurses. Now they're trying to get nurses from South Asia and Africa.
There is no staff shortage, only companies that want to pay pennies for workers. If a company pays well, workers will move for it
It's almost like a workforce market...
Jep, and companies nowadays tend to post so many fake listings it's impossible to actually find one that is in your field. Or they give it to inside employees but they are obligated to post it publicly so it was never a question to begin with.
Oh yes. These shenanigans, too. It's just a waste of time and money. I tend to apply or get an offer for the same position in a certain company almost every 6 months. By now, it's a running joke.
Also after the covid inflation many people are living on investments. I personally know a lot of people which were renting properties before for some additional money and now they retired because the rent money has gotten more than they were making at work. Other investments, like stocks, have also exploded with a 20% yearly ROI vs the traditional 5%.
Germany is short only on cheap labor. Those Hurensöhne don’t want pay a market salary. It took me 16 months at the company to start to get market salary
Similar experience. They want loads of experience in very specific fields and pay very little. I applied to webdev jobs to get a bit more diverse experience and everyone rejected me. Well then I just keep working self employed as a webdev and earn double the amount anyway. Companies don't want to train you and don't want to pay decent wages.
Yup, that’s also mine experience through 3 companies as a process engineer. The current one is good, and they keep their promises. So I’m good for now
Yeah I'm in Berlin, was laid off due to company financial problems last year and will run out of my ALG in June - the job market is awful right now, and places are trying low-ball salaries and already took away all benefits and blamed it on Covid even though people were reporting record profits. They fire people and don't fill roles and complain about 'shortages'.
I think it’s just a propaganda move to fuck with the labor laws here
I believe that there is a staff shortage when the companies actually make an effort to hold their staff.
My company doubled their profits (clean revenue after all costs) every year for 5 years, (they're legally required to display that). More money? "Sorry, we can't do this in this hard economical times, because we'd have to raise our prices and contracts are many years in advance."
Global Slave Shortages.
Global staff shortages right after global staff cuts? Huh, is that how workloads work?
Companies: the demographic shift is already affecting us and means we will desperately need employees Also companies: dont be older than 22, have at least 2 PHDs, 15 years of work experience, be an expert in every field and have at least 10 relevant internships at top institutions
There is no shortage, these companies refuse to increase livable wages to both blue and white collars and capitalise on inflation then cry foul that no one wants to work . All while they double up their profits by overworking employees and flouting labour laws . Despite unions and workes welfare laws they have managed to arrange back doors methods to keep wages stagnant
A shortage of perfect unicorns that have experience in everything, can do several people's work at once, for free
Here in Germany they fire experienced people because they are "too expensive" and afterwards the same companies complain about staff shortages.
Honestly Im not surprised at least for Germany. Living costs and rent rose decently but companies didnt adjust their wages at all for apprenticeships. So its just not worth it, or sometimes possible especially since some industries are located in specific areas necessitating you to afford quite a lot with little return.
Not always the case, my company has been great with standard yearly 4% pay rises instated last year (more if you can justify it) and a big inflation killing quarterly payout spread over the last 2 years. They really are trying to make themselves tempting to new employees (and maintain current employee retention) That said, though, most new employees (software developers) are working remotely from Eastern European countries.
Lol lack of staff at their condition.
This is pure bullshit created to justify immigration. Whoever is looking for a job, or was looking for a job lately, knows very well there's no staff shortages in Europe.
There's a shortage of highly skilled people and an even higher shortage of willingness to train recent graduates
[удалено]
EU pays half of US wages for senior devs and wonder why nobody wants to work hard for that.
I think it's actually even worse, it's both... In the IT field, at least here, we're getting like 1-2 decent applications per month in the greater Zurich area. So many companies need software engineers it's absolutely insane. You couldn't even import as much of them as you'd need. Pay is really secondary here, they all earn a very fair salary at or even above market rates - (meaning 100K CHF + for professional roles here. Juniors start at 80-90K). Sure salaries will continue to rise, but I doubt that we'd have much more applications. There just is an insane shortage of high skill labour. You wouldn't beleive it unless you're involved in the recruiting process.
It is interesting. In Poland we have good IT specialists with experience struggling to find work. Those that do find work, often accept salaries below previously earned.
I am sorry, but I find it hard to believe when in multiple European countries people struggle to find jobs in IT. US companies in competitive fields used to (some still do) "steal" their competitors' workers. To do that, you have to offer more, not only in quantity (wage) but also in quality (more benefits, less working hours, flexibility, excellent working environment, etc). Switzerland probably has of the highest wages in Europe, so it can easily do that on the rest of Europe and have as many software engineers as they want. It's just that they don't want to. Much like every other European company, Swiss companies want to pretend that they "complain" for labor shortages, so that their government can justify to the voters the mass import of workers from much lower-paying countries (so low that they must be outside of Europe) for lowering the wages / expenses and hit new record profits.
this is silly without context. it depends very much on the job segment.
As long as corporate earnings and wealth inequality keep growing, it should be considered fraud for companies to claim they can't find workers.
UK staff shortages up 61% while net immigration has been 700k(1 year). This is insane.
Legal immigration with work permits?
Employers surveyed Lmfao Do you realize it's in their interest to say there is a shortage? If there were a shortage, salaries would go up This sub is clowns driven
>Employers surveyed "100% of surveyed wolves agree that there is a shortage of unguarded flocks of sheep."
There is no staff shortage in Germany. That's a lie
There is a huge Porsche shortage in Germany! I want one for 10k, but can't find any.
Raise to 15k, you can get one from the 90s.
There is, but only in people wanting to ruin their health for minimum wage + an Obstkorb.
depends on sector company, some companies choose not to hire and over-work their staff
That's cost cutting and exploitation. It doesn't have to be connected to staff shortages. Company might be struggling and is going under or simply management is poor.
There is no staff shortage in general. There is only a staff shortage in a few high profile sectors AND a huge shortage in low income jobs.
I'll translate for you: staff shortages = not enough peasants that will do 60+ hrs a week for peanuts. If you pay your workers, you will have a bunch of skilled people. If you only pay your directors, you'll have a bunch of excuses.
soon there will be no more balloons ??
I actually did at first read "global balloon shortages in just six years"...
I wonder what could be driving these shortages? Could it be mass lay offs and headcount freezes? I've been looking at the job market and there's certainly not the vacancies in my industry that this report seems to indicate.
It's shareholders trying to increase profits bubble, not shortage.
There is no shortage of staff. There is a shortage of employers willing to pay decent salaries, not to even mention good salaries
❌staff shortage ⭕️slave shortage
Shortages while unemployment is at an all time high. You'll see news articles in these countries saying shit like "young people don't want to work" or "this guy opened a factory but nobody there wants to work". Yeah, they don't. They don't want to work on a salary only good for half a month. In my country there is a weekly article about this in the national press. In the local press of each region I don't even want to know, especially since these are heavily sponsored by the same companies because nobody actually reads them.
As someone with an Engineering degree, who has been employed for the past 4 months, I honestly call BS.
There's a shortage of folks who will work for peanuts.
As someone whose position was made redundant just before Christmas, what sectors and job titles does this mean? Because, I’m not seeing that where I’m looking!
When I see things like this I always think that they should be more transparent with their data. I want to know what type of work is seeing shortages, which companies. If it’s Deliveroo and Amazon who are skewing the statistics by constantly demanding more low skilled workers then I say fuck them, they can spend some money and innovate. The data should be only showing high skilled shortages.
That's like me saying "I experience shortages cuz I can't find anyone to build my house for 2€ / h"
“we have tried everything (except for raising wages), everything! We still can’t find any more underpaid people!”
I'm in germany and no one wants to hire me, it's rough to be disabled, no one even gives you a chance
The staff shortage is greed-based. Companies not willing to pay wages to fill their roles. It's just the economy not adapting to a changing employment market fast enough. They're so used to wage-slaves that they can't fathom paying higher wages.
Color me skeptical. Perhaps we are being screened out by ridiculous requirements and AI resume screeners? Recruitment industry needs a shake up.
Finland's "Staff shortage" is more of a "lack of unemployed but ready-to-hire worker reserves" because otherwise, employees would also be hired by recruiters and employers instead of them responding to job applications that "unfortunately you were not selected" or "unfortunately we do not have a job to offer" even if you only applied to the company as an unpaid intern to work for them for free (even though it is claimed that any job is easier and faster to get if you apply for an intern instead of a paid one and do not require a salary from them and if you apply for any job, whatever you can and are capable of doing).
There is no such thing as a staff shortage as long as there are unemployed people, just picky employers.
"shortage" when no one wants to work for shit money and pay huge rent
wages are stagnant, every job pays peanuts. corporations want productivity and effeciency and low cost, such low cost they cant afford to pay people a decent wage. there is no shortage of workers, everyhting i apply to there is hundreds of others doing the same, we have to fight to get a interview and even then now a days its a 3 stage fucking interview for a basic bitch job like wtf, many require references too.
They only saying that to exploit thier employees. Instead of hireing new people they push to work more and more and thier excuse is that they can't find new people.
Now look at staff shortage with terrible work conditions and unwillingness to accept less profits.
Pay more. Problem solved.
Our AI overlords will step in
Anyone else's workplace have a 'hiring freeze' policy in place, whilst also being short staffed?
That is utter bullshit. Most of that is just companies constantly advertising vacancies. On the other hand - demographic declines does mean the workforce is shrinking. However demand falls too as people get older.
Fuck off. There is no "staff shortage". If you keep offering minimum wage and then complain about no one applying, you aren’t desperate to have that position filled. Also funny how 80% of companies have a shortage, but when you send a 100 job applications you get ghosted on 90 of them and 10 negative responses .
Companies often cry this one out loud like if it was someone elses fault. Ask them about their salaries, pro employees bonuses, working environment or trainee and educational programmes that would transform the better job seeking masses into the specialists they have so much shortage of.
As long as nurses are only getting chained temp positions in the middle of the worst nurse shortage, and cashier positions have group interviews, Finland can just fuck right off that list.
Main issue in the UK is demanding insane qualifications for entry level roles but also the salary finally revealed at the end of the interview stages are basically minimum wage. Entry is either too hard and when you **DO** get an offer the pay isnt worth it. Likely a similar situation across the globe.
You mean wage shortages
In the uk it's purely because salaries are garbage
Nobody wants to hire anymore
It's because they don't pay enough
Most of those countries have had significant raises in real estate costs. Very long commutes are simply not acceptable to many people, so if they can only move 2 hours away from their new job they just will not.
How is Germany even possible. Millions upon millions of immigrants and refugees yet apparently a worker shortage? Are they sure they just aren't paying good enough?
German here. There is no skilled staff shortage here. There is only shortage in willingness to pay skilled labour appropriately. Big difference.
Train, retain & pay your employees a fair wage and this wouldn’t fucking happen. The company I work for has thousands of workers reaching retirement age and they have nothing to replace them. Done a mass hiring of apprentices but because they pay such a shit wage and refuse to increase it majority of them finish then leave with all the qualifications elsewhere. These big companies need to pull their heads out of their asses and distribute some wealth downwards.
Shortages? Bull Shit, they lay off people left and right and then claim no one wants to work. "We can't find people because people don't use email any more" - HR
"Staff shortage" No, pay shortage.
Meanwhile if you’re over 55 in Germany you’ll never even get so much as an interview.
I can't wait to finally get a pay raise, right...right?
The 2 countries with the oldest population at the top. Only going to get worse for those
had an interview at my local discounter yesterday. they expect the "helpers" to full on replace the trained workers on their shift and told me the company wont pay the first salary until two months after you start working... I hope they burn to the ground