The shortage of skilled workers across Europe is an increasing problem for the zone, and the EU companies lose out to foreign competition.
The annual Mobility Report from the job platform Indeed has revealed that the number of job seekers from other countries to the EU has also increased significantly in the last few years.
Some of the measures that the EU has introduced in an effort to address the growing skills shortage include the Talent Pool and the Blue Card to facilitate the immigration of skilled workers from non-EU countries.
The report revealed that in June, 2.8 per cent of searches in the EU were made by job seekers outside the zone. This indicates that 82 per cent more people have looked into working in Europe than they did two years ago – in April 2021, when the total rate was 1.5 per cent.
However, the search queries from job seekers from other countries, like Australia and Canada, are considerably higher, as 17.2 and 10.9 per cent of job seekers were looking for jobs in these two countries, respectively.
Software development in Germany is particularly attractive for foreign skilled workers, with 13.3 per cent of all clicks on job offers in this area, with the majority of those that search for jobs here being Indian nationals (25.5 per cent) as well as American and British nationals, with 10.4 and 9.2 per cent, respectively showing interest in IT jobs in Germany.
The interest of US citizens is heading in a downward spiral, as large tech companies such as Google, Meta and Amazon have recently laid off numerous employees due to economic problems.
However, IT is not the only sector that needs foreign specialists as the increased interest from job seekers from outside the EU is noticed in skilled trades and care, but the demand for these positions remains considerably lower compared to IT positions.
In the areas of health and nursing care, as well as food preparation, production, sales and catering, only 2.8 per cent of clicks on job advertisements come from non-EU countries. It should be noted that job seekers from Turkey and Morocco are particularly interested in gastronomy, health and nursing, and crafts jobs.
On the other hand, nationals of Western Balkan countries are heading towards the EU to offer their expertise, leading these countries towards a brain drain, especially in the medical field, with doctors and nurses increasingly seeking opportunities to travel to Europe.
Toska Maxhuni, who is now working as a medical assistant at Klinikum Bayreuth in Germany after graduating from the University of Prishtina in Kosovo, had to leave her home country in search of better working opportunities.
I have applied for about ten job vacancies in different cities across the country, and I didn’t get in. Then, I started German language courses and gave up searching for jobs in Kosovo,
She shares the luck of thousands of doctors from Kosovo who are increasingly searching for new places to work, ideally in Europe. According to the Chamber of Doctors and the Chamber of Nurses, one doctor emigrates every two days from Kosovo, while these rates are even higher for nurses, as two of those emigrate on a daily basis. These figures are particularly alarming as Kosovo already has a low number of doctors in the country – 3,555, or about 2.5 doctors for 1,000 inhabitants.
