by Freddy Willems, Business Unit Manager, ACE development & engineering, Lummen (BE)
The manufacturing industry faces a whirlwind of challenges. From keeping up with technological advances to finding qualified employees. This stems from the persistent talent shortage and the gap between available skills and business needs.
Research shows that almost one in five companies have great difficulty finding the right profiles. This situation is further complicated by the need to constantly adapt skills to the speed of technological innovations and digital developments.
Despite the economic uncertainty and caution among employers, the labour market in 2024 remains very tight for a number of profiles, according to VDAB. Especially the search for technical employees remains particularly difficult for many employers.
According to VDAB, this search could continue. And ageing also plays a role in this. Because the retirement of large groups of experienced workers will structurally affect the tightness and tension on the labour market for quite some time.
To overcome the lack of available skills, as many as 25% of companies use external staff. At ACE, we have over 35 years of experience with this approach. Our engineers often work on-site at our clients' sites and are a valuable complement to their internal teams. Thus, we provide companies with the skills aligned to the acceleration of technological innovations and digital technologies.
Our priority is not only to attract engineering talent, but also their development and growth within exciting organisations and projects. We believe in engaging and supporting talent, not just binding it. In our approach, we always start from the talent and listen to our people's interests and ambitions and match them with our clients' challenges.
We see ourselves as a matchmaker and once we have found the match, we do everything possible to provide maximum support to our talent and the client.
