EU Skills Shortage: Is it As Bad As it Seems?

The focus on skills shortages across Europe has heightened since the result of the Brexit referendum, with Britain and the remaining EU Member States thinking about how tighter borders will affect international recruitment.

Research by Cielo has found that nearly half of all Talent Leaders today cite skills shortages as the biggest obstacle to securing high-quality talent. These shortages were highlighted as being more significant issues than the usual suspects, including cost of hire, time to hire, etc.

Cielo’s study found that just 31% of businesses that work with an RPO provider are impacted by the skills shortage, compared to 43% that recruit in-house. This prompts us to ask whether Europe’s skills shortages are real, or if instead they reflect that businesses are not fully utilising the best techniques to attract and hire the best talent.

Let’s examine the possible scenarios: