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Competence the Industry Needs |
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Why is this so?
The “best heads” are those who can, or are in a position to, face new challenges; or crack new nuts, as a larger industrial corporation so aptly put it recently.
That industry is continually hunting for the best heads, is also expressed in the answers to the Federation of Norwegian Industries’ recent survey of competence trends in industry today. The survey was presented in its entirety at the conference, “Competence and Working Life”, April 16-17. However, we can already glean some signals from the raw material.
Is the need for competence still on the rise? What kind of competence is industry interested in? The Federation of Norwegian Industries needs input on these issues for its political lobbying and operative work, to meet the thoroughly considered and documented needs of its members.
Increasing need for competence?
The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration’s numbers from March 2008 indicate a new trend. It looks like the labour market is weaker than it has been for years. The question now is whether this indicates that we are already at the bottom of an economic boom, or that the bottom is fast approaching.
• The number of unemployed seems to have flattened out.
• In the construction industry, unemployment has increased somewhat.
• The number of jobs available is high, but falling.
• Access to ordinary job-seekers is on the rise, but still low.
• The demand for labour is still high, but the trend indicates a decline in 2008.
What does this mean for industry?
We have asked, to what degree industry needs new or different competence and why, both in 2008 and in the longer term (2009-2011).
It seems that most companies need access to labour to some degree, which is confirmed by the trends illustrated by the 2008 Business Trend Report, with numbers from November 2007, indicating that industry expects a marginal increase of slightly less than one per cent employment in 2008.
There are three main reasons for these new/changed needs.
• New goals and strategies.
• Employees retiring.
• Employees quitting / changing jobs.
What kind of competence is industry interested in?
If we compare the need for apprentices, operators, engineers, graduate engineers, and doctoral engineers, the companies that participated in the survey evaluated their needs as follows:
Operator – Engineer – Graduate Engineer – Apprentice – Doctoral Engineer
Most ---------------------------------------------------------- Least
In other words, operator competence is the most sought after.
In the longer term (2009 – 2011), this need is amplified. The demand will increase, but the ranking is the same as 2008:
Operator – Engineer – Graduate Engineer – Apprentice – Doctoral Engineer
Most ---------------------------------------------------------- Least
In this extremely tight labour market, it is especially difficult to recruit production workers, operators, and engineers.
That’s why industry is using significant resources to provide employees with further education.
In addition, it is important to attract more students to technical fields. We need increased admissions to technical studies, especially for students who want to be “Graduate Engineers” and get a Master of Science (MSc). Finally, numbers from technology and industrial production programs at high schools indicate that there is still a lot of work to do to attract more students to these fields of study.
By: The Federation of Norwegian Industries
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