By José Crettaz

The lack of qualified staff has deeply worsen in Argentina. According to a survey conducted by Manpower Group, 63% of employers cannot cover key positions. A year ago, the percentage of companies which had trouble on this matter was around 41%. Among the most difficult jobs to cover are those that require specific education, such as industrial technicians, engineers, handmade crafts, accounting and finance staff, and industrial workers with certain competences. And new difficult positions emerge: sales managers, supervisors, projects’ executives and managers.

Some of the facts that causes this phenomenon are the chronical lack of technical skills, the greater demands from firms -which continuously require a bigger diversity of specializations-, education’s quality deficiencies and fear to change jobs in an economically unstable context. Moreover, this situation occurs simultaneously to a growing level of suspensions and dismissals in several industries.

Such apparent paradox is explained by the disconnection there is between what companies demand and what the labour market offers. The shortage of qualified staff will force companies to invest more on training their current employees to develop the profiles needed.

“Other additional sources of talent shall be women and people older than 45 years old, and companies will have to adapt to the requirements of those segments”, said Alfredo Fagalde, General Director of Manpower Argentina.

The 9^th Talent Shortage Survey of Manpower reached 37.000 employers in 42 countries. Argentina, where 803 firms were interviewed, is number 4 in the ranking of markets with the greatest qualified staff shortage; last year this country ranked 13^th.

If the results of the survey are compared to the results of 2013, industrial workers and technology staff have escalated two positions (ranking 5^th and 6^th), while other categories enter the ranking (sales managers, supervisors, executives/managers and project managers) and others leave the ranking (secretaries, assistants and office staff, customer services representatives; drivers and manufacture workers).

The lack of qualified staff is a global phenomenon: “one out of three employers mentioned having difficulties to cover jobs, with a 1% increase when compared to 2013 and the highest level since 2007”, states the report. In other words, the problems is twice as big in Argentina when compared to the world’s average. Other countries in the region also affected by this problem are Peru and Colombia, while in Brazil the phenomenon seems to be of structural character.

According to what is explained in the research, employers in Argentina say that the reasons for having difficulties when covering key positions are: lack of working experience of candidates (48%), lack of technical and hard skills (21%) and lack of candidates (17%). “In Argentina there is a retraction of the supply due to the cautious attitude exhibited by working people caused mainly by the uncertainty provoked by economic unsteadiness. However, in Colombia and Peru we know that shortage is due to a very active demand from companies”, explained Fagalde.

Throughout the world, companies believe that this shortage will have a negative impact on corporate performance (54%). In Argentina, such perception is slightly lower (49%).

“The impact on the capacity of providing customer services remains the greatest concern on a global level. However, the survey shows other negative consequences that the skills gaps cause to an organization, such as a competitiveness lost and a mounting staff rotation. These two are the ones that cause a greater impact on Argentinian employers”, added Fagalde.

The countries which face greater difficulties when finding qualified staff are Japan (81% of employers cannot cover key positions), Peru (67%) and India (64%). When comparing to the last year, the problem became more serious in markets such as Peru (+39%), Colombia (+27%), Argentina (+22%), Panamá (+20%) and Italy (+17%). Spain (3%) and Ireland (2%) are still the countries with lower gap levels, as they were in 2013.

ANOTHER WORLD “WAR”

In 1997, Steven Hankin from McKinsey, spoke for the first time about the “war for talent”, referring to a growing global competition between companies to lure and retain qualified professionals, and about the importance of talent for companies to succeed. The concept was later captured in a book written by Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones and Beth Axelrod, published by the Harvard Business Press.

Those concepts no longer were a management theory, as they became a progressively harder reality to companies.

In Argentina, one of the industries that most suffers workforce shortage is software and IT services, both growing at the same rhythm as human resources. Nevertheless, the phenomenon also affects basic industries and creative areas

This column was originally published by  www.lanacion.com.ar