Despite small decline, high demand for skilled workers in all sectors

Following a high at the beginning of 2019, demand for new specialists in the Swiss economy declined somewhat towards the middle of the year. This is shown by the survey established by the recruitment company Hays in Switzerland. Skilled Workers Index (FKI).

Demand for skilled workers at a high level

With an index value of 210 in Q2 2019, overall demand in the Swiss labor market for skilled workers remains at a very high level. At the end of 2018, the counter was still at 204. In Q1, the index even climbed to 222 points - an all-time high since the beginning of 2015, which was set as a reference value of 100. This means that in mid-2019, more than twice as many skilled workers were being sought in this country as at that time.

In absolute terms, 46,077 specialist positions were advertised for new appointments in Switzerland between April and July, compared with 48,705 in the previous quarter. By far the largest proportion of vacancies, namely around 20,000, are in the area of information technologies (IT), followed by sales and marketing with 12,000 positions to be filled.

Fewer engineers wanted

In the engineering sector, the index shrank from 243 points previously to 221 points in the 2nd quarter. 5096 engineers were sought, around 500 fewer than in the previous quarter. The most sought-after profiles include development engineers, e.g. for drive technology, automation, electrical engineering, hardware, mechanical engineering and mechatronics (1090 vacancies), electrical engineers (970) and civil engineers (850).

Finance also recorded a decline, from 203 to 187 points. In the Skilled Workers Index, however, this term refers to academic employees in corporate and bank accounting, but not to the banking sector as such. Here, controllers (20129) and accountants (1950) are among the most sought-after specialists. Controllers were the only specialization in this skill segment to increase quarter-on-quarter - from 230 to 239 points.

Particularly in demand: IT specialists

In the IT specialization, the steep rise in demand for embedded systems developers that had been ongoing since the 4th quarter of 2017 was halted for the first time. During this time, demand had more than doubled. In other specializations, demand continued to rise in Q2, including database developers, web developers, IT project managers and leaders, IT security specialists and IT support staff. By far, the Skilled Workers Index recorded the most vacancies among software developers (4128), followed by Java developers (1466), IT consultants (1431), IT supporters (1398) and web developers (1365).

Slight decline in demand for life sciences

Demand in the life science sector also declined slightly overall; the index here fell from 216 in the 1st quarter to 204 points. Growing demand was recorded in the skill segments of clinical research staff and quality managers. By contrast, demand for life scientists has once again shrunk, so that the number of vacancies in this segment has fallen by a third in 24 months. However, with 412 open positions, this specialization is still the most sought-after in the life science sector.

No break-in detectable

At 204 points, the index for specialists in sales and marketing is also almost at the same level as before the end of 2018 (203). The greatest demand here is for qualified staff in sales: 4766 corresponding positions were available in the past quarter - around 500 fewer than in the previous quarter. Only the customer service and marketing manager segments saw minimal growth.

Despite these mixed results, Marc Lutz, Managing Director of Hays (Schweiz) AG, remains optimistic: "Demand for specialists in all sectors remains at a very high level. There is no actual slump to be seen, especially as companies are advertising more than twice as many vacant positions as they did four and a half years ago."

Source: Hays

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