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“The people who are available on the workforce don’t correspond to demand from employers,” said Nathalie Delebois, co-chairman of fr2s (Federation of Recruitment, Search & Selection), in a recent interview with Delano. Her fellow chairman, Gwadlys Costant, added, “The skills being demanded change very quickly and we are seeing youth unemployment increasing, especially in the young graduate category.” 

So, we have a situation where young people are graduating from university, presumably highly qualified, but not finding jobs, and a market where companies are having difficulty recruiting the skills they need. On the surface, the solution to both problematics seems obvious--why don’t companies recruit the young graduates? It is not rocket science.

Apparently, it is not that simple. Costant explained that, “Companies want to employ ‘plug-in-and-play candidates’. What we refer to as junior/senior people. The difficulty is that often, universities are not teaching students the skills that employers are looking for and employers don’t want to invest in training in the long-run.”

“We need to change the paradigm,” she continued, “both employers and job seekers need to get realistic.” She explained further that employers need to invest in training young people, but the challenge is to keep it interesting. “Young people care more about staying engaged and motivated than having an impressive job title.” 

That said, Delebois added. “Graduates also need to be realistic and prepared to invest the time in training and gaining experience in their professions. They need to acquire knowledge and can’t expect that to happen overnight.” 

In order to be sure of future skills, the pair are certain that a dramatic change in attitudes and expectations will be needed by all--employers, candidates and educational institutes.

“Instead of training for a specific job, for example,” said Delebois, “it would be more helpful to teach candidates how to learn and how to anticipate and adapt to changing situations.”

For Costant, higher education needs to address the content of the courses it offers. In her view, the university system as it is, is “obsolete.”

“They should focus more on natural intelligence and on how to learn quickly--skills that are immediately useful to employers.” She noted that, “Even in Luxembourg we hire very few graduates from Luxembourg University and more from France and Belgium.” 

They both feel strongly that training for jobs in Luxembourg should be done in Luxembourg but worry that the country does not have enough training resources. In the meantime, investment in young people and flexibility on all parts are required to begin to fill the skills gap.