The labor market is showing timid signs of recovery and businesses have slowly started hiring again after the years of severe crisis that have brought the entire supply chain to its knees. In 2018 they were 4,5 million employment contracts that the production system intended to stipulate, with demand growing by 11% compared to the previous year. The problem is that supply has not always met demand.
What are businesses looking for? Language teachers, software analysts and designers, electric welding specialists, electrical engineers, insurance agents and so on. The request is therefore varied, but more often than not those who have to hire find it difficult to find what they are looking for. The certifies it Excelsior 2018 report by Unioncamere and Anpal, presented on Wednesday 27 March in Rome.
According to the data, at least one in four companies (26%) have found out a mismatch between the skills sought and those offered by workers. A "mismatch", as it is technically called, which particularly concerns the regions of the North East, where the labor market is more dynamic, with one job out of 3 not filled due to a lack of suitable candidates.
Paradoxically the problem particularly concerns the younger ones. "Of the one million and 267 thousand contracts for which companies said they were preferably oriented towards the under 30s - explains Unioncamere - 28% are considered not easy to find, with peaks of 62% for specialists in computer science, physics and chemistry, 45% for IT, engineering and production technicians and 43% for workers in metalworking and electromechanical activities”.
WORK: THE 30 HARD-TO-FIND PROFESSIONS FOR BUSINESSES
Among the 30 most sought-after profiles that according to companies are the most difficult to find, 19 concern technical professions active in the industrial and services sector, with particular difficulties encountered above all by companies active in electronics and information technology, where there is a significant demand for figures not easily available on the market at different levels of specialisation.
There are essentially two difficulties indicated by companies in finding certain profiles: either there are not enough candidates (an adequate example is the small number of energy engineers active in our country) or the candidates who present themselves do not have the necessary skills.
Below here is the complete list of the 30 hardest to find professions according to companies.
WORK: THE SKILLS SEEKED BY COMPANIES
Schools, universities, training courses struggle to provide the skills that companies need. The data on the misalignment between supply and demand speak for themselves: if in 2017 21% of companies complained about the "mismatch", in 2018 this percentage rose to 26%. This increase is linked to changes in the structure of occupational needs, among which the increase in the demand for profiles stands out above all more qualified professionals.
According to what we read in the 2018 Excelsior Report, the need for managers, specialists and technicians has increased in particular (19% of total planned revenues), while the demand for unskilled professions has dropped by three percentage points.
What are the most in-demand skills? Those related to the digital world and eco-sustainability. In detail, "the use of digital and mathematical and computerized languages and methods are essential factors for more than one job out of two", underlines Unioncamere.
