Skills shortage hampers Portugal’s economic recovery

LISBON: When French technology consultancy Altran needed to hire staff for a new centre in Porto, it held a recruitment fair on board a boat docked in the northern Portuguese city’s colourful riverside area.

Dozens of recent graduates mingled with Altran staff as they enjoyed sweeping views of Porto’s iconic double-deck metal arch bridge.

At the end of the day Altran managed to fill just over 20 positions and the company plans to repeat the experience again this year.

The event held in July highlights the effort companies need to make to woo skilled workers in Portugal, which is facing a shortage of qualified talent that is hampering its economic recovery.

“Given the scarcity of technology professionals we ended up having to draw their attention in a more appealing way,” Altran Portugal’s human resources manager, Ricardo Machado, told AFP.

Portugal, which has bounced back from a 2011-14 debt crisis that brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy, is grappling with a skills shortage that is capping how fast its economy can grow.

Fuelled by a tourist boom and a surge in exports, the Portuguese economy expanded 2.7 per cent last year, the fastest pace since 2000.

This helped bring the unemployment rate down to 7.9 per cent in January, down from a record 17.5 per cent in 2013 at the height of the debt crisis.

But companies from the tourism to the textile sector complain they struggle to find candidates with the skills they need.

Over half of Portuguese CEOs, 55 per cent, surveyed by recruitment consulting firm Stanton Chase, ranked difficulties finding qualified workers as their biggest headache.

“We have today in every sector a huge shortage of qualified workers,” said the head of the Portuguese Business Confederation, the country’s main business lobby, Antonio Saraiva.

Portugal simply does not produce enough of the skilled workers it needs.

While education reforms have improved its track record in recent years, the country still has one of the biggest high school dropout rates in Europe, a legacy of the country’s 1926-74 right-wing dictatorship which invested little in schooling. —