The difficulty in finding collaborators with the necessary skills is one of the main challenges faced by companies in Argentina. According to a study conducted by IAE Business School and IDEA Relevamientos, 9 out of 10 companies acknowledge that they do not easily find the profiles they need.
The work “Analysis of the skills gap required by companies in Argentina” was developed based on a sample of 165 companies of different sizes and sectors, between June 16 and July 31 of last year. Its results revealed a structural gap between the skills that organizations demand and those that candidates actually possess.
Positions linked to technology (49%) and sales (45%) are the most difficult to fill. Large companies are the ones facing the greatest complications in the search for positions related to technology (61%), while SMEs identified their main obstacle in sales positions (51%).
Beyond formal education, soft skills such as self-management (31%) and teamwork (22%) are the most difficult to find. Cognitive skills, such as creativity and problem-solving, are also among the most in-demand and scarce.
Conditions
From the candidates’ side, base salary (53%) and work modality (40%) emerge as the main reasons for rejecting job offers, with a preference for hybrid or remote work models.
94% of companies indicate that there are gaps between the capabilities they expect and those that candidates bring. The gaps are more pronounced in middle management and leaders, where they directly impact productivity and team management capacity.
“This mismatch between required and available competencies reduces companies’ competitiveness. At the same time, it forces many companies to allocate more resources to internal training to cover these gaps. Just as companies must invest in training, the educational system also needs to update its teaching models,” said Luciana Paoletti, executive director of IDEA.
70% of companies attribute the deficit of people with the required skills to outdated or insufficient training in educational institutions, while 50% mention the difficulty in adapting to demanding or changing work environments.
The lack of practical experience (45%) and low motivation for continuous learning (38%) complete the main causes of the mismatch between the supply and demand of skills.
The main consequences are: delays in filling vacancies (68%), loss of productivity (48%) and increased training costs (33%). Given this situation, large companies concentrate their training programs on management skills (61%), while SMEs prioritize teamwork (51%).
Gaps
“Companies of all sizes and sectors state that there is a gap between the skills they say they need and what they find. The group of skills where the gap is most relevant is self-management, largely composed of attitudes: motivation and self-awareness, curiosity and continuous learning, reliability and attention to detail, resilience, flexibility and agility.
This data could be considered in curricular design from early stages,” considered Julián Irigoin, professor of Human Behavior in Organizations at IAE Business School, the business school of the Universidad Austral.
The survey -conducted through a semi-structured online questionnaire- included companies from sectors such as services, industry, energy, technology, banking, and mass consumption. The participants were owners, CEOs, and Human Capital directors.
The survey results were part of IDEA’s approach to the topic of education for employment presented at the 61st Mar del Plata Colloquium.
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Analysis of the skills gap required by companies in ArgentinaIAE Business SchoolIDEA
