About skill needs forecasting
There is currently a shortage of a number of occupations in the labour market. The forecasting of skills needs seeks to establish links between economic trends and occupational requirements. In this way it provides timely information on what qualifications and how many workers holding them the economy will need, and assesses who has good prospects finding appropriate employment.
The past development of the Czech economy brought about major changes that affect the situation in the labour market. Thanks to new investments alone some 140 thousand new jobs have been created since 1993. Tens of thousands of additional jobs were created due to economic prosperity virtually across all sectors of the economy.
The number of new jobs grew over the long term until the 2nd quarter of 2008 when it was negatively affected by the global economic crisis. The trend reversed and since the 3rd quarter of 2008 the gap between the number of jobseekers and the number of available jobs began to widen. In the 4th quarter of 2009 the difference was over 500 thousand jobs, while in the 2nd quarter it was “only” 146 thousand jobs.
Picture: Number of unemployed and vacancies
This situation is further deteriorated by a major regional and occupational mismatch that results in a situation where tens of thousands of people seek employment in vain. The requirements of enterprises are changing rapidly and not many people are ready to face this. On the other hand, companies are increasingly tackling difficulties in filling key job positions.
Both these aspects of the current situation have one thing in common – they cannot be addressed immediately. In many cases there is need for major changes in legislation, in the education system, curricula or investment incentive schemes. However, several years often elapse before such action is taken. Similarly, students in final years at basic and secondary schools must choose their future specialisation several years before they enter the labour market. Finally, those who are in the labour market are pondering what competencies and qualifications employers will require from them if they are to be employable over the long term.
Therefore it is necessary to describe not only the problems the labour market is currently facing, but also the trends that will shape the demand for labour force in the following years. This is the objective of our project and of this web portal.
