An OECD report confirms the considerable mismatch between the skills of the workforce and the jobs on offer in this country, stressing that Greece belongs to the group of economies where posts with specific skills account for over 70% of all vacancies. However, few job seekers express interest in job ads that refer to specific specifications – only 5%.
“In Greece, employers are increasingly publishing job vacancies based on skills, but the interest of job seekers is low. On the contrary, in countries such as the Netherlands, interest is high, but few job ads emphasize skills,” states the latest report on skills in the labor markets of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.
That finding confirms the research that documents the difficulty of finding personnel for companies operating in the Greek economy. One of them, ManpowerGroup, has shown that 80% of employers are having difficulty filling vacancies.
The same indicator carried out by the National Documentation Center, the Hellenic Statistical Authority and the Panhellenic Exporters Association put the figure at 76%; it attributed the reduced interest of candidates to the lack of appropriate skills to fill the positions.
In terms of the response that governments in countries such as Greece should give, OECD economists speak of the need to develop a new culture in the labor market, which will prioritize skills. In this context, they highlight the usefulness of tools such as the European Skills Alliance, which invests in lifelong learning and retraining.
In the meantime, the optimum connection of higher education with the needs of the market should be considered essential, as should greater efficiency in the brain gain project. The loss of qualified human resources that migrated during the years of the crisis is part of the country’s demographic problem and, by extension, a significant factor in the reduction of the workforce available to cover jobs that require skills.
The adjustment of professions to the skills that artificial intelligence is rapidly creating, as well as the introduction of AI in applications for the recruitment of human resources by businesses, are also useful in order to help the economy take the direction it needs.