Employers find it especially difficult to find nurses, electricians and systems scientists with the rights skill-set, shows the Public Employment Service’s occupational barometer for spring 2025. While the lack of staff within healthcare is expected to grow in the coming years in line with an ageing population, the need for employees within education is on the other hand predicted to decrease.
– There is still a lack of, for example, primary school teachers, but in five years’ time we can see that fewer school-age children will reduce the demand for several professions within educational work, says Kerstin Eriksson, analyst at the Public Employment Service, to TT.
Out of the 165 professions that have been investigated in the analysis there is a labour shortage within 53 of them. The need for staff within law, finance and administration is expected to in part be covered by digitalisation and automation.
When it comes to professions such as cleaner, receptionists and servers there is, on the contrary, a paradoxical situation: there is a need for recruitment, and a potential selection of labour, but there are deficiencies in matching. It may also be a case of part-time workers, unemployed people who lack the right skills or those who have left the profession, according to Kerstin Eriksson.
– At the same time as employers have a hard time recruiting servers for example, we see that many in that occupational group are listed as unemployed, she says.
In order to bridge that gap we need reinforced skills training, in-service training or subsidised employment, according to Kerstin Eriksson.
– Employers also need to be more flexible when recruiting when possible, she says.