The most difficult job profiles to find according to entrepreneurs in the Canary Islands are linked to tourism, including waiters, cooks, kitchen assistants, gardeners and lifeguards, according to the first Labor Prospecting report of the Canarian Employment Service (SCE), which includes the real needs of companies in terms of human resources.
Next, the most difficult positions to fill are in the construction sector, mainly electricians, bricklayers, welders, plumbers or locksmiths. There is also a lack of professionals in the industrial maintenance sector, truck and bus drivers, as well as butchers, fishmongers or delicatessen workers.
The study, presented this week by the Minister of Tourism and Employment, Jéssica de León, and the director of the SCE, Dunnia Rodríguez, analyzes the data collected in 625 Canarian companies, from September 2022 to the same month of 2023. It addresses, among other aspects, the professional profiles most requested by employers, the vacancies with the greatest difficulty of coverage, or the reasons that lead to rejecting job offers.
“Every year, numerous jobs remain unfilled in the islands, despite the fact that there are more than 170,000 unemployed people”, explained De León, who stressed that “the data in this report allow us to draw different radiographs to know in which profiles we should train workers and define new strategies for 2024 and the coming years”.
81% of Canarian entrepreneurs hire through their contact networks
According to the study, the main reason is the lack of qualified professionals, since the Canary Islands do not have an adequate training offer, a situation that is aggravated in the non-capital islands. It also points to the lack of vocation, the low level of English or German, or the lack of the certificate necessary to carry out the activity. In addition, problems with work-life balance, mobility or the lack of rental housing in some municipalities also cause some vacancies to remain uncovered.
In this sense, De León announced that the SCE has already begun to use this data to design new employment programs, and will launch a new subsidy in the coming days to train unemployed people as freight and passenger transport drivers, with the aim of alleviating the lack of drivers detected in the islands.
Regarding the forms chosen by companies to recruit workers, the contact networks (81%), the curriculum vitae that are delivered in person (63%) and the publications in employment portals (60%) stand out. In 40% of cases, they also do so through the SCE, a percentage that must continue to increase to enhance the role of this autonomous body as a job placement agency for companies.
