Majority of SMEs in Flanders can’t find qualified staff

The availability of appropriate job candidates is the greatest hindrance to SME growth, Unizo found, with 87% of businesses reporting the problem. The organisation called on the government of Flanders to provide more education subsidies for students following courses need in the current economy. “Students need more opportunities to gain work experience,” said Unizo director-general Karel Van Eetvelt.

Flemish training and employment agency VDAB agreed that little progress was being made to shorten the list of “bottleneck jobs” – those jobs where the shortage of candidates is acute – despite growth in the number of students signing up for courses in technical subjects.

Last year the number of people employed by SMEs fell by 1.4%, representing 8,677 jobs, Unizo said. That figure is expected to improve in the coming months, based on a turn-around in the last quarter of 2014. Three sectors went against the trend with increased employment: transport (up 1.1%), services (0.5%) and professional services, such as doctors and lawyers (up 0.4%).