Labor Market: The industry looking for the largest number of employees

There is a significant shortage of specialized IT and communications technology executives in Greece, according to SEPE, which undermines the competitiveness of companies and the economy itself. Employers are mainly looking for developers, IT project managers, cybersecurity specialists, and big data analysts.

The industry looking for the largest number of employees today is information technology (32.5%), followed by hospitality and catering (12.2%), professional services (12%), retail (5.4%), and communications (4.9%). Between 2020 and 2023, companies looking for employees increased five-fold, with one in three vacancies being in the IT sector.

Meanwhile, Greek universities cover only 50% of the IT sector’s new needs for IT professionals, according to a study titled “Mind the Gap: Bridging the Gap between Higher Education and the Labor Market”, out of 36 relevant Greek IT departments. Universities produce about 4,500 graduates every year (only 50% of those accepted), while the market needs almost twice this number.

Greek universities cover only 50% of the new needs for IT executives

“Already in large IT projects of the country, while tenders are progressing normally, a serious problem appears in their smooth implementation due to the lack of experts. This phenomenon is also beginning to create a problem in attracting significant investments from large technology companies and dynamic startups, to develop R&D centers in Greece.” , according to the study conducted by EY Hellas, ELTRUN-OPA and Endeavor Greece, which was released yesterday.

The gap between academic degrees and the labor market

The study’s authors point out the urgent need to bridge the gap between higher education and the labor market, in order to address the major problem of the lack of qualified personnel.

According to the results of the study, only 51% of the university’s departments are directed towards a leap in productive development in the country, meaning that out of 430 departments, only 219 provide graduates with direct job opportunities in the private economy.

Impressively, graduates in 42 departments have the main (or only) vocational rehabilitation position in the country. The picture is similar in graduate programs.

There, while quantitative adequacy is recorded in terms of numbers and students of the programmes, there is an overemphasis in health sciences, social sciences and humanities. Within the broader field of informatics, there are 148 graduate programs (9.9% of all graduate students).

In the academic year 2023-2024, according to the results of the study, departments that focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics studies (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) constituted 30.7% of the total, which is a satisfactory percentage compared to other countries.

However, there is still a shortage of IT graduates – a particularly high value-added branch of the Greek economy – despite the presence of 36 specialized departments and 148 postgraduate programmes.

This shortage is exacerbated by factors such as the digital projects of the Recovery Fund, high demand in the private sector, the development of the local ICT sector and specialized start-ups, but also the operation of technological research and development centers by major international companies.