Shortage of Skilled Workers

The project aims to assist enterprises in developing and implementing Personnel Development Program in order to overcome shortage of skilled workers. There are partners form six European countries in the Leonardo Da Vinci programme sponsored project. The project aims to develop instruments and tools for enterprises to ensure that they have enough skilled workers in the manufacturing sector. Besides personnel development programs, which include career planning and training, the project aims to support enterprises in transferring knowledge and experience. With the aid of these instruments and tools it will be possible for enterprises to identify potential skills shortages in time and to take action to avoid future problems.

A vocational educational scientific research design and the methods will be applied for the analysis of the shortage of skilled workers in the producing sector in Europe. The changing world of work forms the centre point for the empirical research and is the starting point for new qualification and personal development concepts.

The project is intended to clarify whether there is a shortage of skilled workers at the skilled-worker level in the manufacturing sector of the metal and electrical industry in six European countries, and what the causes of and reasons for the emergence of this shortage in the sector under investigation are. In addition, it will examine how policy and companies can contribute to solving the problem through in-company qualification and staff development measures. The instruments to be developed should make it possible to identify shortages and potential needs for skilled workers in companies at an early stage and to counteract them in a targeted manner.

A vocational research design is used to analyse the labour and skilled-worker situation within the manufacturing sector. The aim of vocational research is to open up the world of work and the skilled-worker situation in the sector in such a way that proposals for the design of education and staff development processes can be derived from it. The world of work and its changes are therefore at the centre of attention.