Industry can't find workers despite 2.6 million unemployed

60% of industry can't find workers while 2.6 million are unemployed

Six out of ten Spanish industrial companies cannot find workers. This is not idle complaining: it is the figure that opens COPE's report on a paradox that defies the rulebook. In the same country, 2.6 million people are still registered as unemployed. And the positions nobody fills — operator, welder, assembler, lathe operator, milling machine operator, sheet metal worker — are advertised, according to collective agreements, from around €1,500 gross per month.

The case of Jordi Zamora, owner of the machinery company Tecmaq in Barcelona, sums up the logjam. He has spent months looking for experienced assemblers. "It's as easy as reading a blueprint, but there are no people with the training to do it," he says. He has ended up going to an education fair himself to negotiate with vocational training schools, and this very week he is starting to collaborate with a centre to recruit students and train them within the company. "We always need people," he admits.

Which industrial profiles go unfilled and how much they pay

The first Study on the situation of the manufacturing sector in Spain, by Easyfairs, puts numbers to the logjam. Operators and welders are the hardest profiles to fill for 50.4% of companies. They are trinc by maintenance technicians (41.7%), automation engineers (27.3%) and additive manufacturing specialists (12.2%). Another 23% of companies in the sector add another obstacle: the lack of cutting-edge digital skills among candidates.

Jordi Zamora is clear about the starting salary: "It's not bad for someone starting to work." And he adds that, due to the difficulty of finding these profiles, especially with experience, they easily end up earning more or much more than the collective agreement sets. On paper it sounds reasonable. In the pay packet, less so.

The real cost of a worker doesn't fit in the ad

Here begins the part that no job offer details. The agreed gross salary is only one piece of the puzzle: according to calculations used by participants in the debate, Social Security adds around 30% on top of that gross amount for the company, plus administration, tools, training and months in which the operator is paid without producing. One of the participants puts the average cost per employee at around €3,000 per month when everything is added up. A self-employed carpenter explains it bluntly: "The minimum cost of an operator exceeds €2,000, plus extra administration costs, plus a month when he doesn't work but still gets paid." His conclusion: he prefers to turn down jobs and keep working alone rather than hire someone who doesn't add up in his accounts.

The other side of the balance sheet also has its arithmetic. According to a case described in the debate, out of €1,500 gross, just over €1,200 net remained in the pocket, and from that you have to subtract petrol, car and travel time to the industrial estate. When transport eats up €300 a month, as another participant recounts, the distance between what the offer says and what arrives at the end of the month stops being a detail.

Does paying more solve the problem?

Not always, argue those who know the market from the inside. One participant recounts the case of a welder with years of experience in shipyards in Vigo who earned around €2,000 net; later he got his diver's certification and now earns around €4,000. With those references, a job at €1,500 gross doesn't get a phone call. Another similar case ended up in Germany working piecework, with months in which savings are counted in the thousands.

But salary doesn't explain everything. Some argue that the problem is structural: if there isn't enough industrial fabric, there is no demand to sustain high wages, and if there are no high wages, nobody trains in trades that require years of learning. The result is a vicious circle. And a warning raised by some self-employed workers: there are companies that simply cannot pay more without closing, because their clients won't accept a price increase for the service.

The generational handover and the bridge that hasn't been built for years

Zamora himself points to another sustancia ilegal: "Those who had experience have already retired or are about to." 17% of companies in the industrial sector identify that generational handover as a real obstacle to finding workers.

Human Resources expert Jesús Vega points to the mismatch between training and business as the main barrier. His thesis: "There has been no strengthening of vocational training, which now seems to be happening. But in the world of work, problems aren't fixed overnight; it takes years." And he throws out an uncomfortable comparison: there are more Spaniards with degrees than Germans, but Germany has an unemployment rate of 3.5% and Spain 11.3%; among those under 25, 6.8% versus 24.7%. One in four unemployed people in the eurozone lives in Spain, according to Eurostat.

Vega insists that you don't need to go to university to do jobs that are well paid today, and calls for an active policy that identifies employment niches and communicates them to job seekers. Another of his statements is left hanging in the air, that labour coming from abroad is not qualified and is not being qualified at origin: an assertion that is questioned in the debate itself.

It's not just industry

The phenomenon goes beyond metal. In the retail sector, eight out of ten companies also have difficulties finding workers. The same happens in construction. And there aren't enough truck drivers or waiters when high season arrives. The pattern repeats: scarce training, demanding conditions and competition for talent that is no longer played out within borders.

The underlying discussion, the one that separates one side from the other, is whether we are facing a supply problem (there are no people) or a price problem (not enough is paid). The calculation that the cost per employee is around €3,000 per month while the starting salary stays at €1,500 gross feeds both readings at once.

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Voices from the sector and the labour market

• "I've been hearing this story all my life, but then the reality is that there are skilled workers galore, what there aren't are salaries in line with the work."
• "The minimum cost of an operator exceeds €2,000, plus extra administration costs, plus a month he doesn't work but gets paid the same, plus extra tool costs"
• "I'm a carpenter, and I've been working alone for years, the numbers don't add up for me to hire anyone."
• "a junior just starting will be on about €1,500-1,850 net in 14 payments, and yes, here you have to unload pallets once your shift ends"
• "I remember my first normal job back in '99, at the exchange rate it was a bit over €1,000 under the metal agreement about 25 years ago"
• "That is achieved by planning many years ahead and we already know that in this country that has not been done and never will be"