European Year of Skills: Survey highlights skills shortages in SMEs

SMEs are currently grappling with a major challenge – finding the right talent with the right skills. Skills mismatches and shortages are not just a local issue, but a continent-wide concern for the European Union. In May 2023, the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, on behalf of the European Commission launched the Flash Eurobarometer 529 European Year of Skills: skills shortages, recruitment and retention strategies in small and medium-sized enterprise. This survey aimed to uncover the skills shortages plaguing SMEs and shed light on their recruitment and retention strategies

Key findings:

• Skills are everything: 95% of all SMEs say that it is very (82%) or moderately (13%) important for their business model to have workers with the right skills.
• Skills shortage persist: three quarters (74%) of SMEs in Europe say they concretely face skills shortages for at least one job role in their company. Also, more than half of employers (53%) report finding it challenging to retain qualified personnel, and almost 4 in 5 say it is normally tough for them to locate people with the proper abilities.
• Digital imperative: The digital era is here to stay, with 24% of respondents acknowledging the increasing importance of digital skills in their SMEs. In fact, 45% lamented that skills shortages hinder their adoption of digital technologies.
• Innovative Recruitment and Retention: SMEs currently employ a wide range of strategies to recruit and keep employees. This includes initiatives to better utilize talent already present within the organization (such as staff mobility or job rotation), greater training expenditures, or enhancing the financial and/or non-financial perks offered by jobs.
• A Plea for Support: SMEs are calling for better coordination with public employment services (58%), improved tools for assessing applicant skills (49%), and enhanced tools for evaluating their own skill requirements (46%).

The call is clear: there is an urgent need to revamp the education and training efforts to match the skills demand, especially in the face of the digital and green revolutions.

 © European Commission