13.05.2022

WHICH PEOPLE WILL FALL OUT OF THE LABOR MARKET

According to the World Economic Forum, critical thinking and problem-solving skills will be the most sought-after skills by employers. How technology is changing the labor market and creating a need for skills that employees need to have, what are the skills that employers are looking for and will look for in the future in the age of technology, and teleworking.

Krasimira Karadzhova, Member of the Management Board of the Bulgarian Association for Human Management and Deputy Head of Department and Regional Coordinator of the Bulgarian Association for Human Management for the Black Sea Region, spoke on the topic to Radio Sofia. She stressed that a distinction must be made between "competence" and "competency".

"Competence - this is the ability to do something in a certain way and is based on the skills we have acquired. While competency focuses on how a specific task is performed and is based on behavior," Karadzhova said, adding that most companies have introduced competency models.

According to her, according to the World Economic Forum before the covid crisis, the most sought after competencies are complex problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, people management, coordination with other people, emotional intelligence and more.

According to her, the crisis has changed the labor market, as it has forced a large number of people to work remotely, which has led to the development of self-motivation, coordination, critical thinking, communication and social skills and more and a large proportion of employees who have worked online have developed these skills.

Karadzhova said that there is currently a return to the offices and these skills acquired by employees will not be able to be fully applied, but they will lead to better performance of tasks and less supervision by the employer.

"This is future development and these skills will certainly be needed in the future and to work in a global environment," Karadzhova said, adding that emotional intelligence and coping with stress are difficult to measure, but individual plans can be made and everyone to be able to optimize their results.

She added that with the advent of automation and digitalisation, lower-skilled people will drop out of the labor market and be replaced by machines and artificial intelligence. This requires retraining, and that most companies need to create such an atmosphere that their employees themselves want to participate in training.