Study title

SMEs and skills shortages.Topics: most important problems for the own company at the moment; difficulty for the own company to find staff with the right skills in the last two years; average time needed to hire person with the right skills; number of positions (full-time equivalents) currently needed to be filled; most difficult qualification / educational level to recruit; existing job roles in the company; difficulties recruiting staff for selected roles; main reasons for the company´s skill shortages; impact of the skill shortage on own company; impact of the skill shortage on the company´s ability to: reduce environmental impact and help reducing climate change, deploy more IT technologies in the company‘s operations; preferred statement with regard to the deployment of Artificial Intelligence Technologies (AI) in the company over the next five years: (planned) use of AI with an expected significant impact on the company’s skill needs, (planned) use of AI with no expected significant impact on the company’s skill needs, no plans to use AI but expected significant impact on the company’s skill needs in case of use, no plans to use AI and no expected significant impact on the company’s skill needs in case of use; measures taken in order to tackle skill shortages: abandon business or contracts, training and reskilling of the current staff, broaden the candidate pool, more retention efforts for current employees, employer branding and personal marketing, new recruitment channels and more advertising, improve working conditions, increased use of temporary and self-employed workers, use of headhunters or recruitment agencies, more intense use of digital technologies to replace human resources; received type of external support to find skilled staff in the last two years: support in providing staff training, direct subsidies, indirect subsidies, consulting and guidance, fiscal incentives, other external support, no need for external support, company´s applications...