2023-09-07 04:41:00
This is already one of the major issues of the electoral campaign. The shortage of labor and the employment of the long-term unemployed are indeed agitating all political parties.
Between the penalties for the unemployed who refuse a job following two years (Vooruit) up to the exclusion of job seekers following two refusals (MR) via the annual bonus for those who, conversely, have accepted a job in short supply whose net salary is less than 2,300 euros (median salary), there is no shortage of ideas.
Allowances for shortage occupations are not meeting the expected success
Members of the Walloon government (Morreale and Di Rupo) even hope to convince the State to regularize undocumented migrants and asylum seekers capable of entering the economic sectors concerned. In Wallonia, there are labor problems in a series of professions: 158 are “in tension” and 92 “in shortage” (construction, logistics, catering, butchery, accounting, etc.).
New professions are in short supply in Wallonia: “There are permanent contract opportunities, good salaries, but the image of certain sectors is catastrophic”
At Forem, 80% of training is even directly linked to these shortage jobs. Last year, nearly 7,000 job seekers trained in these trades knowing that the Walloon Office for Vocational Training and Employment trained a total of 90,000 people in 2022. When we know that Wallonia has still 224,000 unemployed job seekers, this means that less than one out of 30 unemployed Walloons is trained in a job in short supply.
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Not everyone has a vocation to be trained in these professions”
De Croo wants to force the long-term unemployed to accept a shortage job: “Without motivation, it will not work”
A 77% employment rate for shortage occupations
A proportion regularly abused by politicians and which remains to be put into perspective. Firstly, this report does not take into account people trained by education and by other operators. Moreover, placing the responsibility solely on Forem would be caricatural.
It is businesses, education, politics and operators that must be mobilized together to improve the visibility and attractiveness of the various sectors concerned. Moreover, according to many experts, forcing someone to practice a profession for which he has no interest is a sure failure in the medium term.
Schools facing a shortage of teachers: “We have people full of good will but who do not have the basic diploma”
“Not everyone has a vocation to be trained in these professions, stresses Thierry Ney, spokesperson for Forem. The solutions to combat these shortages and encourage training are multifactorial and involve several stakeholders. The operators must make the training courses better known, do more communication and the sectors in question must give a better image of their professions. There is a lack of notoriety and we see a discrepancy between the image of a job and the reality, I am thinking in particular of construction where jobs and working conditions have evolved considerably. It is obviously necessary to train more workers but it is also necessary to remove certain pitfalls on the image and to restore the attractiveness of these professions”.
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Employees do not have a good view of existing training”
An essential dimension when we know the fallout in terms of employment. “Following training offered by Forem, the employment rate for shortage occupations is 77%, it even reaches 80% in the field of transport and logistics”, he specifies. The latter might even be higher if we removed certain obstacles such as mobility for job seekers”. Indeed, this element is a key asset when we know that only 40% of Walloon job seekers have a driving licence. Then there is the legitimate question of the financial capacity to acquire a car”.
One in three Belgian workers say they do not need training
And if there is still until September 30 before the deadline for information on the right to training for each worker in organizations with more than 10 workers, a study carried out by SD Worx among 481 Belgian SMEs tells us that one out of three Belgian workers (34%) declares that they do not need any training. Which is no exception in Europe. In fact, almost one out of three Belgian workers (29%) needs 3 to 5 days of training per year and a quarter (27%) would like at least six days per year. The majority (64%) say they learn on the job. According to the survey, nearly 71% of SMEs with more than 20 workers have a training plan.
“We often see that employees do not have a good view of existing training, underlines Valérie Maes, Country Manager Belgium of the online learning platform GoodHabitz, who does not say she is surprised by the results of the study. . It is for this reason that we must create a real apprenticeship strategy in Belgium, this requires better communication and promotion around existing training. Employers also have a responsibility, they must attract more attention from employees”.
By introducing an effective training plan, she believes in particular that the added value of workplace development will reach the employees. “Today, there is no longer any need for a very specific worker profile, in particular for a profession in short supply, so we recruit a candidate then we train him so that he is adapted to the job in question, observes- she. We recruit then we model, it’s a new development. Moreover, we also notice that “soft skills” are becoming more and more important in the job market, in particular the sense of leadership, the notion of feedback, etc. With the automation of work and the development of AI, hard skills are less and less sought following, so it is human skills that are gaining in importance”.
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