Shortage of specialist doctors, speech therapists, truck drivers deepens

TALLINN – The professions that the Estonian labor market needs the most at this point are those of truck driver, speech therapist, specialist doctor and IT specialist, it appears from a labor needs survey of the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund.

When it comes to truck drivers, employers say that they are experiencing the biggest need in drivers in international haulage. Even though there are also job-searchers in said profession, these people rather prefer to work in Estonia, which means that employers have to find drivers from outside Estonia, spokespeople for the Unemployment Insurance Fund said. 

In the field of IT, employers have it difficult finding specialists of higher skills levels, while there is a surplus of data typists on the labor market. The situation on the market was the same six months ago.

The barometer also indicates that although many sewing factory workers lost their job in East-Viru County of late, employers continue to have difficulty filling seamstress positions at their factories.

There is a shortage of workers also in construction, manufacturing and industry, customer service, including catering, and medicine, where there is a shortage also of carers. 

According to the Unemployment Insurance Fund, the shortage of workers in many fields is a result of the field being not popular with young people, which makes it difficult for employers to find workers to fill positions that become vacant. Such fields of activity include manufacturing, for instance. 

It is also difficult to fill the positions of carers and customer service personnel, where the general pay level rather is low but the work is difficult and tiresome by nature.

In many professions the problem lies in access to a job, as people living in rural areas often cannot get to work due to the absence of public transport services at required times. Other reasons cited frequently include work in shifts, long workdays, remuneration not meeting the expectations of the worker, and insufficient qualification. 

There continues to be oversupply on the labor market of office workers such as accountants, secretaries and assistants. These are professions that are popular with job-seekers and see a constant flow of new trained personnel from schools, for whom it is difficult to find work because of the toll that automation of work processes is taking on these jobs.

In the field of accounting there has been a surplus of workers already for some time, which suggests that it's worthwhile for people looking for a job in that profession to consider continuing education or retraining that would increase their competitiveness on the labor market, the Unemployment Insurance Fund said.

The labor needs barometer is compiled by the Unemployment Insurance Fund twice every year by providing an estimate concerning the fields of professional activity set to experience a shortfall of workers, a balance between demand and supply, and a surplus of workforce.