“It’s harder and harder to attract the qualified young people in SMEs!” 3.2 Retaining workers and making SMEs more attractive to young and qualified people Summary One of the most challenging tasks - also against the background of demographic change - for many micro, small and medium-sized companies is to retain qualified and trained workers and to attract a qualified workforce. As survey polls regularly show, in most cases, young graduates tend to gravitate towards large companies and are only rarely interested in SMEs. Today, many craft businesses and micro enterprises with jobs, which are not very attractive to employees, are already facing a severe scarcity of labour and personnel. As the cases summarized in this section show, SMEs can attract workers in many ways. They are often on the cutting edge of innovation; they can offer young employees rapid career advancement, etc. In sectors experiencing recruitment difficulties, a negative image often needs to be corrected. But only by keeping a constant eye on working conditions will a sector eventually become attractive to younger workers. Here again, social partners’ organisations play an important role due to their influence in public policy debates, as well as through social dialogue with political actors and educational institutions at the national and sectoral level.
Good practice experience For younger and qualified workers, the comparative advantages of working for a large company can be greater than working for a small one. In general, wages and career prospects are more attractive. Very often as well, working for a SME is seen as the first step of a personal trajectory on the labour market. How to attract younger workers and among them, qualified workers? How can SMEs solve the following paradox, which is that they will not necessarily profit from the training they offer to younger workers, as turnover rates show? To attract young workers, it is necessary to work on improving the image of a job. Innomet in Estonia has promoted employment in the metal work industry. In the Netherlands, the PaperTrain project offers practical courses on how to attract younger workers to the paper industry. Two factors were behind the development of this project: the important need for training in the paper, board and corrugated board industry; and younger workers’ disaffection with conventional training courses. To meet these two challenges, the project provides more practical training Working on improving the courses and visual training materials, within a blended image of a job approach. Attracting younger workers to SMEs can also be achieved by introducing employabilityenhancing programmes with a social inclusion dimension. The main objective of the Embarcate project in Spain (not on the final list) is to facilitate access for vulnerable unemployed groups to employment in the fisheries sector. Training is seen as the most important tool to achieve a lasting labour insertion on board fishing vessels. The DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities: SME Training Guide
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