More than 50 percent of employers in Taiwan have experienced staff shortages this year, with sales representatives topping the list of professionals in short supply, according to a survey by human resources agency ManpowerGroup.
In this year’s survey, ManpowerGroup found that about 57 percent of Taiwanese firms face difficulty recruiting employees, placing Taiwan third on the list for the Asia-Pacific region after Japan with 83 percent and Hong Kong with 65 percent.
The figure is 12 percentage points higher than last year’s figure, ManpowerGroup said, adding that it was the second-highest since Taiwan joined the survey in 2006.
Taiwan’s poor talent pool makes job openings hard to fill, ManpowerGroup said.
A lack of qualified applicants or no applicants topped the list of reasons for the difficulty in filling jobs (45 percent), 14 percentage points more than the previous year, followed by a lack of hard skills (27 percent) and a lack of soft skills (26 percent), ManpowerGroup said.
Soft skills in the survey included team work, interpersonal skills, creativity, motivation, presentation skills and experience, ManpowerGroup said.
The survey found that sales representatives positions were the most difficult to fill according to employers, in particular in the finance, insurance and real-estate sectors.
Employers in those sectors said that candidates usually lacked industry-specific certificates to be qualified for the role, ManpowerGroup said. The agency added that these employers look for candidates with international finance-related certifications or foreign language skills.
The survey showed that employers in the manufacturing sector have been eager to recruit technicians, while a shortage of engineers, civil engineers in particular, has affected employers in the mining and construction sectors.
According to the survey, about 40 percent of Taiwanese employers said that a talent shortage has hurt their companies’ competitiveness, productivity and the ability to meet client needs.
However, most respondents said a talent shortage only had a “medium” impact on their operations.
“Although the problem of the talent shortage has deepened, Taiwan’s employers have yet to pay attention to the consequences that this might mean,” ManpowerGroup manager Sunny Chen said.
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