How Jobs and Skills in Demand Change in Romania.

Being strongly action-oriented, employment has entered a process of analysis and redesign. What is the reason for this? Working from home and teleworking have brought us to the situation where we have understood that some jobs can be carried out at a distance, with the latest technology and instruments used, writes Claudia Indreica, expert in personnel recruitment, with 20 years of experience in the field, in an analysis collected by Edupedu.ro.

Other jobs require a mix, a hybrid model, which leads us to the 3-day telework model and 2 days in the company or vice versa. If our need coincides with the availability of the employee for a hybrid model, we go on like this. This is not the case for other workplaces that require the presence in the company – such as production, construction, customer service at the client`s headquarters, medical services etc. Here we know that there are few changes in the structure of the job. However, we do have posts with hybrid activity, which, once rethought, can be completely defined outside the company office or headquarters. Thus, jobs completely outside the office become work from home or from anywhere else, and the recruitment pool grows considerably. The whole country – this is the first scenario from which we start in the case of recruitment. For our clients, we have also moved to the second scenario – Europe – from impatriation, attracting expatriates – especially for a certain segment, Romania is attractive.

What does the redesign entail?

An analysis starting from the tasks and activities, rather than from the job as a whole, but also the image of the performance provided. Thus, the need for control – so often invoked in the case of a lack of performance – attenuates to a certain extent. On the other hand, there needs to be a response, an increase in the responsibility of the employee and the results delivered.

What does change mean in terms of competences?

As the recruitment pool increases, competitiveness will automatically increase as well – we need employees who have a culture of effort, of work, oriented towards lifelong learning, and who are aware that these aspects will put them in the forefront of the labour market. The movement is towards AI (artificial intelligence) and machine learning, towards the automation of processes to increase efficiency, which means that jobs requiring manual skills will fall by 2030 18%, and those with a basic level of knowledge 28%. Jobs requiring social and emotional skills will increase (+30%), and the greatest growth will be recorded for jobs requiring technological skills (+39%), according to the McKinsey study – The Future of work in Europe (2020).

If you have children who have a preference for technology, mathematics etc, their orientation towards STEM studies is a very good option. As the trend of demographic change is towards an ageing population, the orientation towards trades that offer services demanded by this segment of the population is another option. Medical services, but also those assisting in home care will grow.

The lack of clear measures leading to the reduction of the gap between the skills provided by formal education (schools, universities) and the skills in demand in companies and institutions – in the private or public sector – will determine the orientation towards recruitment based on experience and skills developed in this period, rather than on the level of education.

Bad news for Romanian schools and universities. Let’s not forget, in Romania the number of higher education graduates is 16% compared to the European average of 28% (source: Eurostat 2019 statistics).

The message is that we have to focus on quantity, but also on quality. Romania has one of the greatest vertical discrepancies in terms of over-qualification. More precisely, we have employees with higher education working in medium education positions, in the main areas measured by Eurostat, the largest percentage being in the fields of trade (33%), but also in the field of transport and warehousing.

Table 14: Vertical Discrepancies: The percentage of over-qualification

%

Source: Eurostat Experimental Statistics

Table from the Report Labour Market in Romania, published in 2019 – study carried out by KPMG – Romanian Academy – INCE (National Institute of Economic Research), with the support of Concordia.

1. The inventory/mapping of competences we need – at present, but also in perspective, taking into account the market evolution in the public and private sectors – see the influence of AI and machine learning, the disappearance of some groups of jobs and the appearance of others, the modification of the basic competences of new jobs (less manual skills, more knowledge and cognitive skills). Romania’s development strategy plays an essential guiding role.
2. The identification of current trainers of competences and the level of preparation provided, the quality of educational services – schools, universities, formal and informal educational system.
3. There is a clear overview of the differences – with a horizon of 10 years in perspective.
4. The establishment of a dynamic system of skills training at the national level, involving several actors/providers (formal and informal educational institutions, companies, public institutions etc.) – to reduce the gap mentioned under point 3 – having as main indicator of success of the programme the absorption in the labour market, the employability of the person, the level of performance achieved.
5. Result: the existence of a transparent index of the skills provided and their level by the operators on the market – schools, universities, companies – to establish a competitive system on the market, ensuring the feedback loop that maintains the level of quality. Any disconnection from the labour market means creating a system that, over time, becomes parallel with reality and no longer achieves its objectives.

The integration of the national skills system with the existing international/European one, to ensure the competitiveness of the workforce.

What objectives do we achieve? The training of an active population in the labour market, with skills correlated to the requirements of existing jobs in the public and private sectors.

1. Increasing the level of cognitive and knowledge-based skills.

2. The increase of the added value generated by the employee – means implicitly the increase of income.

3. Increasing the adaptability of the workforce to the changing demands of the labour market in the public and private sectors, in the context of changes in jobs determined by AI and machine learning.

4. The reduction of the gap between the skills offered by the formal education system and the demands of the market – the reason for the non-employability of young people after graduation (the most affected segment in times of crisis).

In an increasingly volatile labour market, we cannot afford to have an education system that is decoupled from the labour market or a private sector that is decoupled from the public system. The level of competences of current and future Romanian employees is the result of a partnership under the national strategy between education – the labour market – public institutions and companies.

The article was published on Edupedu.ro – you can find it here.