Job market in Europe
Last month, I was teaching in Europe so I had time to visit several universities and talked to many professors. They told me that similar to the U.S., Europe also have a shortage of technology skilled workers as there were not enough technology students graduating from their schools. According to them, Europe needs about one million technology graduates by 2020 but will graduates about 300,000 which mean they will continue to have a critical shortage. However the situation could be even worse because many of their graduates may not have the skills that meet the industry's requirements.
A professor told me: “We are slower than the U.S to catch up with technology changes. We are still using the traditional lecturing methods which may not be practical enough for the industry. Our trainings are emphasizing more on programming languages rather than other aspects of software development which is a weakness but it is very difficult to update curricula to adapt to technology changes. Today most software projects are large, complex and require sophisticated skills than what our students are taught in class. For example, there is no software project management, no soft skills or teamwork trainings so our graduates often have to be retrained when they work in the industry.”
A shortage of skilled workers have created a dilemma for European companies but it provides advantage to people with skills in software development, especially in mobility and cloud computing (i.e., Java, Android, iOS, SaaS etc.) who are willing to relocate and work in Europe. A friend told me that in the past few years there were a lot of foreign workers came to work in Europe, the majority came from Ireland, Eastern European countries like Poland, Hungary, Czech, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and even Russia but there were many from India, Pakistan, and China too. He said: “Outsourcing and special contractors are growing quickly, particularly there are huge needs in the UK. Netherlands and Germany. With some countries are recovering from the economic recession, companies begin to hire IT workers and competition is fierce for skilled workers.”
My friend complained: “In Europe, many skilled workers are working as independent contractors. They often sign short term contracts such as six months to a year so they can switch jobs to get maximum salary as the shortage gets more extreme. The issue that could explode soon is the conflict between importing more foreign workers when there is high unemployment among college graduates especially in countries such as Spain, Portugal, and Greece where there is no job.”
According to newspapers, Spain's youth unemployment has reached over 50% percent, the highest level ever recorded in a developed country. Greece was 48%, Italy was 31%, France and Belgium were about 20%. Germany has a lowest rate of 9% due to the special education program started few years ago where 65% of high school students must spend three days a week at vocational schools to learn special skills and two days a week working part time with a company. However Germany is having critical shortage of IT skilled workers because fewer foreign workers could speak German. My friend explained: “In the IT areas, many workers came from India and China and they often learn English, not German. Most of them want to work in the U.K or the U.S so Germany is desperate for these workers and has been advertising all over the world to attract them but not so successful.”
He explained further: “Overall Europe has a big problem mainly because of rigid labor laws. If a European company hires permanent workers, it is very difficult and expensive to fire them. As a result, older workers do not have to be productive and they keep their job as long as possible so there are limited openings for others. To avoid the laws, companies now are hiring young workers on short-term contracts so they do not have to pay unemployment as they often are the first to be laid off when business is slow. The result is that Europe cannot compete in the globalized market due to its inefficient and ineffective work environment. Many college graduates get lower earnings because there is no advancement to higher levels because people at these higher levels “hang on” on their jobs so graduates often end up in lower-level occupations and lower salary. Many feel frustrate and quit then the countries have to pay for them on unemployment benefits. The cost of paying for these unemployed young people is estimated to be $30 to $50 billion a year across Europe which adds to the tax burden of working people. Because so many young people cannot find job and the future looks bleak, the consequences to both human and the economy may last a long time.”
When young people feel that they cannot contribute positively to society, many quit schools and getting into drugs, alcohol, crimes and other social issues. At the same time, college education is no longer considered a desire to have since there are so many unemployed graduates so many high school graduates refuse to go to college and become a burden to their family and society. A professor told me: “Today a college education is no guarantee of a job. Unless they study in some high demand fields, there are no jobs so there is no reason to go to college and that is why college enrollment is dropping significantly.”
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
