Flash Eurobarometer 529 (European Year of Skills: Skills Shortages, Recruitment and Retention Strategies in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises)

Recruitment and retention strategies in small and medium-sized enterprises.<br>Topics: development of the importance of the following skills for the own company: soft skills, hard skills, green skills, digital skills; difficulty for the own company to: find workers with the right skills, retain skilled workers, assess training needs of the staff, identify appropriate training opportunities for the staff, finance staff training, find time for the staff to participate in training; difficulties recruiting staff for selected roles; attitude towards the following statements with regard to the effect of skill shortages on the own company: hold company back in general business activities, hold company back in greening business activities, hold company back in adopting and / or using digital technologies; measures taken in order to tackle skill shortages: invest more in candidate searches, invest more in training, collaborate with organisations in education or employment, change work processes, abandon the business activity facing skills shortages, adjust or lower hiring standards, increase job attractiveness in terms of financial and non-financial benefits, make better use of talent within the company; assessment of the level of effort of the following bodies to support companies to tackle skills challenges: EU level organisations, national level organisations, regional or local level organisations; familiarity with each of the following: EU policy initiatives for skills, EU funding programmes for skills, EU initiatives facilitating hiring skilled workers from abroad; expected impact of each of the following measures with regard to recruiting staff with the required skills: better tools for assessing the company’s skills needs, better tools for assessing the skills of job applicants, easier procedures for recognition of foreign qualifications, easier procedures for hiring workers from outside the EU, easier procedures for employing remote workers living abroad, better collaboration with public employment services; preferred statement: companies should be the ones responsible for covering the costs of job-related staff training, workers themselves should be the ones responsible for covering the costs of job-related training, companies and workers should share the costs of job-related training; importance of educational qualifications in recruitment; recruitment of persons from outside the European Union in recent times for: coming to work in-person within the EU, working remotely from outside the EU, work both within the EU and from outside the EU; difficulty of hiring process of this person; main reasons for not recruiting persons from outside the European Union.

Demography: information about the company: number of employees, beginning of business activity; development of turnover in the last two years; total turnover in 2022; importance for company’s business model to have workers with the right skills.

Additionally coded was: respondent ID; country; NACE-Code; region; nation group; weighting factor.