ALARM!

The list of bottleneck professions 2018 confirms the shortage of technical profiles. From technician in construction over site manager to maintenance mechanic: employers continue to have problems finding enough suitable workers with a technical background. High time to sound the alarm.

Maintenance at the top?

For years, employers have had problems finding suitable technical personnel. With the current favourable economic climate, this shortage is even more acute. In addition, the social profit sector is also struggling: nurses, for example, with 1,101 vacancies, are at the top of the top ten bottleneck professions. However, when we dig a little deeper into the figures, we see that at the end of December 2017, there were 425 open vacancies for maintenance mechanics (1998 annual vacancies), 240 for maintenance electricians (1509 annual vacancies), and 378 for industrial systems technicians (1,694 annual vacancies). But there are also hundreds of vacancies for other technicians, such as electronic installations, industrial automation, refrigeration and air-conditioning, heating installations, site, agricultural and lifting equipment technicians, etc. All technicians who also carry out maintenance tasks.  So in my opinion, not nurses, but maintenance technicians should be at the top of the bottleneck list. And we are not even taking into account the fact that some companies do not register their vacancies with the VDAB.

Too little inflow

The list of bottleneck professions in Flanders also indicates for each profession why it constitutes a bottleneck. There are three possible causes. The first possible cause is a quantitative shortage due to a too low outflow from education, for example because too few students choose that profession or because there is no schooling for it. There are various courses in maintenance. There are courses in mechanical maintenance in vocational secondary education (BSO) and there are also some colleges that offer a professional bachelor's degree in maintenance. In addition, several TSO schools (Technical Secondary Education) organise a 7th year in maintenance. Unfortunately, together they only manage to train about 400 maintenance technicians annually. And this is not all. Several school boards are considering abolishing the 7th year maintenance. Too few pupils opt for it, the funds are too limited to buy the expensive educational materials. Moreover, with the advent of higher vocational education (HBO5), secondary schools are threatened with losing the right to organise such 7th year maintenance. This while such a 7th year often provides a much more focused education on both mechanical and electrical maintenance. Exactly what the industry needs. 

... and it gets worse

But there is a second cause. The technical maintenance professions also appear on the list of bottleneck professions due to a qualitative shortage: The candidates do not have the skills required by the employers. And this is really not the employers' fault. To illustrate this, I recently received a cry for help from the technical manager of a well-known food company:

"Dear Wim, just like many other companies, we have great difficulty finding technical staff. At the moment, we have no fewer than 17 vacancies for technicians at the 3 sites.  Every now and then we get school-leavers to apply for the position of technician (people with a TSO diploma and sometimes a 7th year). As a company, we are aware that the "white ravens" are no longer to be found, and we are therefore prepared to invest in training. In other words, we often recruit on the basis of attitude and "technical potential".

However, the technical knowledge of school-leavers is generally very low, so that we are unable to retain these individuals. Some examples:

• Not knowing what a loss-of-current switch is
• Not knowing what a 3/2 or 5/2 valve is and what the numbers stand for
• Not being able to read a simple electrical diagram
• Not knowing the difference between a thermal protector and a short circuit protector
• Not knowing what a bearing is
• When connecting a switch, connecting the neutral and line wire together to create a short-circuit
• Not being able to read a mechanical drawing.

You will understand that if there is no basis, the road to becoming a 'full-fledged' technician is still long, whereas today there is an acute need. I hear the same comment from colleagues in different provinces that the level of school-leavers is visibly declining...".
 

This is a cry for help! I too have received similar comments before. It is high time to break the downward spiral of ever lower student numbers, ever fewer practical exercises and ever lower success thresholds. In a previous foreword, I already explained that the 4th industrial revolution requires not only digital skills, but also excellent competencies in basic technology and basic engineering from technicians. It is therefore high time that our technologically oriented education is no longer at the bottom, but at the top of the waterfall. If not, we as a society will complain about this in the future...

Wim Vancauwenberghe
Maintenance Evangelist

PS: The third cause for bottleneck professions is the specific working conditions. Such jobs have unattractive working conditions, such as stressful work or low wages. For most maintenance jobs, however, this has long since ceased to be the case. Isn't it strange that not more young people are choosing a maintenance education and career?