The shortage of skilled workers is accompanied by structural unemployment: Hundreds of thousands of people in Switzerland want to work but cannot find one

class=”sc-29f61514-0 icZBHN”>

Goethe was already convinced: “Contradiction is what makes us productive.” The Swiss economy now has to rely on the fact that Goethe was right. A comprehensive study shows that the Swiss labor market is characterized by contradictions.

“We must take countermeasures now, before these events turn into significant problems for the Swiss economy,” warns Pascal Scheiwiller (50), CEO of the job placement company Rundstedt & Partner, which helps employees reorient themselves after dismissal.

Scheiwiller and his team surveyed nearly 2,000 HR managers and executives in Switzerland to find out where the biggest areas of tension in the labor market were.

The much-noted shortage of skilled workers masks the fact that hundreds of thousands of people in this country want to work but cannot. Unemployment is at a record low of 2 percent, according to the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco). But these statistics overlook cases of structural unemployment: women seeking to re-enter the labor market after maternity leave. He was deported. Or those who work on a temporary, part-time or hourly basis and want to work more. If you add these, you get the labor shortage rate, which currently stands at 8.7 percent, according to the Federal Statistical Office. This means 441,000 people are affected.

“It’s cruel that these people constantly read about the skilled worker shortage and can’t find work on their own,” Scheiwiller says. He sees structural change in the labor market as the reason for the polarization between the lack of qualified workers and structural unemployment. Keyword digitization. “Job profiles are completely changing,” explains Scheiwiller. Anyone with an outdated job profile will fall through the cracks.

More than a third of employed people now work part-time. In the early 1990s, this rate was only one in four. However, stress-related diseases are not decreasing, they are even increasing. According to the survey, 28 percent of employees are “consistently overworked.” “Companies are aware of the increasing stress situation but do nothing about it,” criticizes Scheiwiller.

There is no doubt that a carpenter will not become a butcher overnight. It is surprising that the carpenter has difficulty in transitioning from furniture production to industrial carpentry. But this is exactly the case: 67 percent of the companies surveyed stated that industry experience is an indispensable criterion when hiring. Only candidates with functional experience from a different industry are in a bad light.

Even the shortage of skilled workers has so far done little to change the cult of industry in the Swiss economy. “This shows that the need for companies is not as great as thought,” suspects Scheiwiller. It requests that companies also consider applicants who do not fully meet the requirement profile. “But the willingness of companies to hire people who then need to receive further training is low.”

To close the demographic gap in the labor market, employees need to work beyond retirement age, but companies do not want them at all! “The critical limit is 57, after which it becomes difficult to find new jobs,” says Scheiwiller. Despite the shortage of skilled workers, this situation has not improved much. As a result, 87 percent of those surveyed said they believed something urgently needed to be done about the age dilemma.

Source :Blick