Shortage of workforce hampers businesses in Bulgaria: association

SOFIA, May 8 (Xinhua) -- A workforce shortage has been hampering the development of Bulgaria's businesses, said Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association chairman Vassil Velev here on Tuesday.

The shortage of human resources is a very acute problem, Velev said when addressing a round table discussion on business and higher education.

This issue has been first on the list in all surveys as an obstacle for a more rapid development of Bulgarian businesses, Velev said.

Because of negative demographic trends and economic growth, this problem has intensified during the last two years, he said.

"In 2017, we produced gross domestic product (GDP) approximately twice as high in nominal terms as compared to 2006, and meanwhile the wages increased threefold," Velev said.

However, GDP could rise threefold and wages fourfold if the workforce were of better quality, he said.

As many as 29 percent of Bulgarian companies experienced a scarcity of engineers, 15 percent needed customer service experts, 14 percent, merchants, and 11 percent, IT specialists, Velev said.

Meanwhile, students at Bulgarian universities who studied electrical engineering, electronics, automation and general engineering last year numbered only 18,939, while those in economics, administration and law were 77,656, he said.

"Because of these imbalances, more than 50 percent of university graduates in recent years are employed in jobs that do not require higher education," Velev said.

Velev said education reform and measures to tackle the demographic crisis are needed because the labor market lost more than 50,000 people annually. Enditem