“A reset will be necessary” – survey looks into why Czechs are unwilling to learn new job skills
Four out of ten people in Czechia expect that they will be doing the same job until they retire and a further 20 percent believe that they will be doing the same job for at least another decade, according to a survey conducted by the Data Collect agency for personnel company Předvýběr.cz. The survey shows that many Czechs are unwilling to get themselves requalified despite expectations of major changes on the demand side of the labour market.
More than 40 percent of respondents said that they do not invest any money into job related education, with a further third saying that these investments do not exceed CZK 5,000. On the other hand, around a quarter of those who took part in the survey said that they spend between CZK 5,000 to 100,000 on their professional development.
According to the managing director of Předvýběr.cz, František Boudný, those most likely to be unwilling to invest into expanding their job skillset are employees who work in factories and the wider manufacturing sector. However, he told Czech Radio that the clock is ticking for hundreds of thousands of these workers on the Czech labour market.
“According to a survey conducted by Boston Consulting Group, around 330,000 jobs will disappear by 2030. This means that it is necessary for many people to get themselves requalified to be able to work in jobs related to robotics, automation and applications development. In other words, a reset will be necessary, especially in many of those traditional jobs.”
Unsurprisingly perhaps, he says that it is among people working in sectors such as robotics and automation that the survey registered the highest willingness to invest into new qualifications.
Asked about the reasons he sees behind the unwillingness of close to half of the population to invest in educating themselves further, Mr Boudný says that this could be mainly down to laziness, lack of enthusiasm to invest money into relevant re-education courses or a general combination of these factors.
Indeed, laziness was quoted by more than a third of respondents when they were asked this question in the survey. A further quarter said that they didn’t feel they had enough money to do so and 30 percent of respondents said that they either didn’t have the time, or guarantee that they would be able to actually use these newly acquired skills at their workplace.
However, Mr Boudný says that the survey also showed an important dividing line among those respondents who wanted to learn new skills and those who didn’t – age.
“For example, employees who are younger than 45 are more willing to get themselves requalified and have no problems learning new things. Meanwhile, those who are older than 45 are much less willing to do so.”
He says that when it came to the youngest segment of respondents, 18-24 year olds, just 14 percent said that they expect to remain in the same type of work their whole life.
