Local human resources seen suffering from skills shortage
Greece ranks last in the European Union, along with Spain, in the European Skills Index compiled by the European Center for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP), as while the country may boast a high rate of basic education, it also has a low level of professional skills.
The consequences of that became clearer in the decade of the financial crisis and have hampered the Greek economy in its attempts to rebound and improve. Even if a portion of the country’s human resources does have skills, they have little to do with the needs of the labor market, which translates into low productivity, a waste of resources and unhappy workers.
On a scale of 1 to 100, where 100 is the optimum performance, Greece scored 23, according to the CEDEFOP index that the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV) analyzed in a special report.
While Greece scored 76 in the completion of basic education, it scored zero in the index of employment of workers aged from 20 to 34 years who recently graduated from secondary or tertiary education. This is not only due to the high jobless rate but also to the absence of any connection between university programs and market needs.
