“There is a significant struggle between companies to get talent”

2023-04-22 00:25:30

Three out of four companies admit to having problems finding the professional profiles they demand in the Basque Country, where, moreover, demographic data plays against them and raises fears of a lack of working-age population in the coming years. The cycle ‘Future world. Keys to achieve it’ organized by EL CORREO with the sponsorship of Iberdrola, the Basque Government, Bilbao City Council and BBK reflected this week on the challenge of employment. It did so with the participation of professionals such as the head of Talent Attraction and Selection for the North and West Zone of Iberdrola, Leire Hormigo, who warned of the existing fight to get hold of qualified workers. «There is a significant struggle between companies to get talent. Right now we are hitting each other especially for the technological one, “she explained.

The meeting, led by EL CORREO journalist Ana Barandiaran, presented by Marta Madruga and with the participation of BBK’s Obra Social director, Nora Sarasola, highlighted the need to add STEM profiles (acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in English) and the need for ‘reskilling’ or retraining of professionals. For example, Iberdrola’s training campuses are dedicated to this, through which 13,000 people pass each year, according to Hormigo itself.

In spite of everything, the data for the moment do not invite optimism. Aitor Arzuaga, general director of Alba Free Energy, a subsidiary of Petronor to promote the energy transition and decarbonization, gave as an example the disappearance in some centers of the telecommunications engineering degree due to the lack of students, “despite being an activity with zero unemployment”. “We have a very important challenge as a society in terms of the messages that young people between the ages of 14 and 18 receive and that will polarize them in the development of their student and professional life,” he reflected.

reflections

Iberdrola talent selection

Leire Hormigo

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BBK Talent Manager

Oihane Aldayturriaga

“There is a challenge with the approvals of immigrants. They have difficulties and are forced to practice other different professions» | «We carried out a survey in which 13,000 young Basques participated and more than 80% saw their future here. They want to live and work in Euskadi»

Alba CEO

Atitor Arzuaga

«We over-specify the vacancies and the profiles that we went looking for. We always go for the white blackbird. You have to change the chip» | “We need to sell ourselves really well, because qualified talent can work in any country in the world they want and we are somewhat anecdotal”

Cebek Entrepreneurship

martha martinez

«We are going to lose 250,000 people from the active population in the coming years. Even if all the Basques around the world returned, it is not enough» | “We are one of the most prosperous communities, but one of those that has grown the least in population. 2% compared to 50% in Madrid»

This is not the only profession that suffers from these risks. Something similar occurs with the gap generated between the 3,700 computer engineers who are in demand and the 332 who graduate each year in the Basque Country. In order to solve these needs, initiatives have arisen such as those indicated during the forum by the head of talent and entrepreneurship at BBK, Oihane Aldayturriaga. Thus, he spoke of the digital ‘bootmcaps’ that they develop “with more than 90% employability, and that in four months prepare people for professions such as cybersecurity, ‘data science’, programming, marketing and any other It is necessary for companies to tell us what they need”, he exemplified.

Aldayturriaga highlighted the paradox produced by the so-called ‘Beveridge curve’, which allows millions of unemployed workers and companies that cannot find the profiles they need to coexist in the same society. “What you have studied in your twenties is no longer going to be useful for your entire professional career,” he stressed, and recalled that this situation is a “wave that does not stop” and to which “we are all going to have to adapt.”

«We have a very important challenge as a society regarding the messages that young people between the ages of 14 and 18 receive»

Challenge in SMEs

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For SMEs, facing this challenge of requalification has “an added difficulty” with respect to large companies. This was stated by the person in charge of Entrepreneurship, Transformation and People of the Bizkaia Cebek Business Confederation, Marta Martínez, who highlighted that, despite everything, small and emerging companies are developing actions in this regard. “In the end, necessity sharpens wits,” she noted.

Martínez also raised the alert about the loss in the coming years of a mass of 250,000 workers in the current Basque population. “Even if all the Basques scattered throughout the world returned, and there are about 100,000, it would not be enough to cover these casualties,” he pointed out.

Faced with this situation, it is necessary to take advantage of the immigrant workforce that arrives in the Basque Country, despite the fact that the data warns that the profiles that come to the territory are mostly low-skilled. Aldayturriaga recalled that in some cases the problem lies in his difficulties in asserting his qualifications. “There is a challenge with the approvals of immigrants. They have difficulties and are forced to practice other different professions, “he said.

Sometimes, however, the problem is on the other side, and it has to do with the specificity of the profiles that companies pursue: “the white blackbird”, as Arzuaga called it. “We over-specify the vacancies and the profiles that we went looking for,” he warned.

The other leg of this reality lies in the educational centers themselves, which, in some cases, may still remain far from the new labor realities. Hormigo warned of the “disconnection between the academic world and the company”. “We spoke little to each other,” he lamented.