Taiwan has the second-highest acute shortage of talent in the world, according to a survey released on Monday by international human resources firm ManpowerGroup.
The company said 73 percent of 1,005 employers polled in Taiwan felt that finding talent was difficult, well above the global average of 40 percent found in the survey, which polled more than 42,000 employers in 43 nations and regions.
Taiwan’s figure was 16 percentage points higher than a similar survey conducted last year and the highest ever seen in the nation since the company included Taiwan in its survey in 2006.
In the latest survey, Taiwan’s figure was lower than only that of Japan, where about 86 percent of employers said it was hard to recruit talented personnel.
The top three talents that employers in Taiwan felt were in short supply were sales representatives, engineers and technicians, the survey showed.
Research and development personnel, production line workers, senior managers and information experts were also among the top 10 categories that Taiwanese employers faced shortages, the survey found.
The talent shortage results from difficulties in finding the right person or a lack of applicants, 53 percent of the polled employers said, up 8 percentage points from last year’s survey.
The company said Taiwan is undergoing rapid industrial development and it needs skilled employees to meet demand for people capable of dealing with change.
In Hong Kong, 69 percent of polled employers said they experienced a talent shortage and found it the most difficult to find information technology personnel, sales representatives and financial/accounting experts, the survey found.
In China, only 10 percent of the polled employers said they experienced talent shortage, and the top three categories of personnel hard to find were sales representatives, technicians and senior managers, according to the survey.
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