For many years there has been a shortage on the labour market of staff with a high-quality, technical education. This is not only the case in Western Europe but also in Eastern Europe. And things are not improving. Not only university-level technical staff is getting hard to find, also at vocational and lower levels technicians and mechanics have become a rarer breed all over Western and Eastern Europe.
Companies more and more often move their production departments to Eastern Europe, because wages there are a lot lower than in the West. From a financial perspective this is quite an understandable move. Labour is not in short supply, and both men and women are active in technical professions. The latter fact is also a result of technology being a set part of the curriculum that every boy and girl is presented with from an early age onwards. This is in stark contrast with Western education, where technology only enters the curriculum at a later stage. And yet, here too you see that it getting harder to find really good technical staff. Temp agencies like Randstad already have branches in various East-European cities, and from those branches they are recruiting technical staff from all over Europe to come and work in their East-European city or country.
Fields of activity that face scarcity are found in the process and production industry, in electro-mechanics, in the automotive industry and in the management layers of the whole technical sector. Moreover, due to the impact of industry 4.0 it is also difficult to fill all ICT-related vacancies, especially those of ICT application developers.
Research has shown that the lack of development and education opportunities is one of the causes of staff turnover. Another conclusion is that well-educated staff members are more satisfied and enjoy their work more. This in turn is reflected in greater customer satisfaction. And this boosts the competitive power of a company.
PIEK is well aware of this and deliberately partners up with nearly all leading companies in the technical interconnect industry. PIEK is the only IPC educational institute in Europe that has been certified to teach all IPC courses. PIEK can cater to the need of the labour market to supply top-quality technical staff. If you are interested in having your staff educated to the highest standards, please contact PIEK. We are there to give your company the best possible staff.
