BRUSSELS, BELGIUM — Employment in the European electronics sector is expected to grow, according to a new study. Such a trend would exacerbate issues created by an existing shortage of skilled workers, IPC says.

Employment in the European electronics sector is climbing but still below pre-2008-recession levels. Germany remains the clear employment leader, employing approximately 813,000 workers in 2018, equivalent to just over a third of total employment in the EU28. France, Italy, the UK, and Poland round out the top five.

The electronics industry is moving eastward, says IPC. From 2011 to 2018, electronics industry employment in Central and Eastern Europe grew at an average annual rate of 2.1%, more than double the rate in the EU15.

Employment growth across the EU28 is expected to average 0.2% per year over the next five years. However, the trend is expected to be far from uniform across Europe, with the shift eastward projected to continue, with the majority of CEE economies forecast to enjoy above-average employment growth.

Wage growth in the UK electronics sector has run well ahead of the economy average and the rest of the manufacturing sector since 2011. Such a trend is consistent with the existence of a skills gap, which has weakened the negotiating power of firms in the labor market, although further research is required to reach any definitive conclusions.

The shortage of skilled workers is the industry’s top business concern. Companies cannot attract enough young workers to replace those retiring, says IPC. With unemployment in many counties near record lows, market conditions are surely a factor. At the same time, electronics manufacturers are requiring ever-greater skillsets as the industry moves to advanced manufacturing.

Advanced manufacturing, which relies heavily on robotics and automation, opens new horizons for the European electronics industry. The workers in these cutting-edge facilities tend to have less hands-on interaction with manual tools and greater reliance on computer-managed machinery. This trend is making manufacturing cleaner and safer than in the past, but it is placing new skills requirements on workers.

IPC is expanding its Workforce Champions initiative from the US to the EU, with a pledge to create at least 500,000 workforce training opportunities across the EU over the next five years.

“The chronic shortage of adequately skilled workers and the changes in skills required are some of the most difficult challenges facing the electronics industry in Europe and worldwide,” said IPC president and CEO John Mitchell. “More than two-thirds of IPC companies indicate a lack of skilled workers is constraining their ability to grow.

“That is why IPC is significantly expanding our industry’s efforts to engage young people and provide the education and training programs they need to enter and be successful in this industry.

“From a policy perspective, we believe Europe needs to take a strong cross-sectoral policy approach to expanding the skilled workforce and strengthening the electronics value-chain.”

Commissioned by IPC, the Oxford Economics report examined data for the European electronics industry, which currently employs approximately 2.4 million workers in the 28 member states of the EU, or about 8% of overall manufacturing employment.

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