How can the shortage of skilled workers be addressed?
Simon Wey, Chief Economist of the Swiss Employers' Association and a sought-after expert on the subject of the shortage of skilled workers, shows how this can be counteracted.
What is it all about?
Hardly ever before has the shortage of labor in the Swiss economy manifested itself as much as in the recent past. Surveys of companies in almost all sectors show that this issue is one of the biggest obstacles to economic progress. At the beginning, it was mainly STEM professions that were affected. However, since the lifting of the most drastic Corona protection measures and the associated economic upswing, the bottleneck has manifested itself in practically all sectors and a large number of occupations. In addition to the healthcare and IT sectors, the construction and MEM industries are particularly affected.
What is also new is the extent of the staff shortage in the hospitality industry and the much greater impact on the industries as a whole. The main drivers of the labor shortage are demographic developments, high job growth and the comparatively low increase in the actual annual volume of work in Switzerland. There is widespread consensus that labor supply will not keep pace with labor demand in the future. Thus, it is assumed that there will be a shortage of about half a million workers over the next ten years.
What to do?
In principle, there are three ways to counteract the shortage of labor: In addition to better exploitation of the domestic labor potential, there is immigration from EU/EFTA and third countries as well as the complete or partial substitution of jobs through automation and digitization. Measures must be assessed in terms of their effectiveness, timeframe and social acceptance. For the Swiss Employers' Association, the priority is to better tap the domestic labor potential, although this alone is not sufficient. In addition, labor market-driven immigration from EU/EFTA and third countries remains essential to generate the necessary economic growth.
But companies themselves also need to rethink and become active: For example, they can increase their own attractiveness on the market by improving working conditions. For example, through flexible working, more and longer unpaid leave, family-friendly working conditions or an even more generous contribution to training and development costs. Overall, companies are also more willing to lower their requirements for potential employees and give them time to acquire the skills they lack in the company.
However, this usually only puts the company in a better position relative to its competitors. This only helps to alleviate the labor shortage in the economy as a whole if these efforts also lead to higher labor market participation by existing workers or those entering the labor market. Accordingly, the major levers for attracting workers in the medium term lie in politics. This can be done by improving the government's framework conditions. This includes, for example, higher incentives to work through taxation (e.g. abolition of the marriage penalty) or sufficient affordable third-party childcare options. The Swiss Employers' Association is committed to precisely such improvements.
Source: Oec. magazine issue #19