A shortage of ‘hands’ is an issue for several sectors in Greece. The most important issue of strategic importance for the productive Greece that we need is the shortages of personnel, talent and ‘brains’.
Greece has the second-lowest percentage of ‘highly specialised’ employees in the EU: 32% in 2021, compared to 42% in the EU and 43% in the eurozone. It was 31% in 2012, compared to 39% in the EU and 40% in the eurozone. The gap increased rather than decreased. Social and economic trends fuelled the leak to where jobs are being created and increasing: enterprises and organisations of more productive economies (and societies).
Sustainable response to shortages is associated with social choices in our economy that reverse shortcomings: Modern, productive, internationally oriented businesses of the right size. Enterprises and sectors that create, develop and capitalise on personnel. Through foreign and domestic investments in competitive production and technology. Through reduction of over-taxation of specialised work by value-added personnel (the rate of 44% for each euro over €40,000 in salary per year) to allow for competitive reward margins. It is also linked to necessary synchronised reforms in education. The objective is to recruit talent, personnel and ‘brains’, to retain them or bring them back, and to capitalise on them in both the private and public sectors.
The repeated difficulties and shortcomings found in sectors and enterprises necessitate immediate action and initiatives from the business world, as well. At SEV, we have already launched initiatives such as our Skills4Jobs and SEV IG@Work. The Panhellenic Union of Pharmaceutical Industry (PEF) has launched its ‘Professional Development Academy’, and the Hellenic Brewery of Atalanti its ‘Dual Professional Training Programme for Brewers/Maltsters’. Addressing the quantitative and qualitative shortage of human capital is perhaps the greatest challenge on the road to 2030.
Source: SEV – Hellenic Federation of Enterprises
