【世界银行】欧盟27国受过教育的工人和管理人员-2025

Possible Causes of an Inadequately Educated Workforce at the Region and Firm Level

1. Firm-Level Obstacles

   • Firms in EU-27 countries most frequently cite an inadequately educated workforce as their top operational obstacle. This issue is particularly severe among medium/large firms, manufacturing companies, older firms, and the most developed NUTS2 regions.
   • The problem is widespread across regions, income groups, sectors, and firm sizes within the EU-27, but more pronounced in larger and older firms.

2. Income and Education Correlation

   • Economic development (higher income) correlates weakly with the availability of adequately educated workers. In low-income NUTS2 regions, strategy should focus on education supply; in high-income regions, maintaining education quality remains critical.
   • Policy focus should shift toward ensuring the availability of educated workers in low-income regions, while in medium-to-high-income regions, existing constraints may not be fully addressed by education alone.

3. Training as a Solution

   • Training provided by firms improves labor productivity, especially for less productive firms, reducing the productivity gap between high- and low-performing firms.
   • Training complements education (no "train drain" effects), and training programs are more common in large firms due to fixed costs.

4. Education and Skill Distribution

   • Skilled workers are more common in larger, exporting, and foreign-owned firms, which often employ a higher proportion of skilled and university-educated staff.
   • University education and skilled production workers are complementary, with universities providing foundational skills for on-the-job training.

5. Impact on Productivity and Management

   • Higher education correlates with better management quality and labor productivity, but effects vary by firm size. Small and medium firms benefit more, while large firms focus on other factors. Female top managers have lower productivity but no inherent disadvantage if highly educated.
   • Highly educated top managers are more common in regions with higher tertiary education rates, boosting firm performance, exports, and job creation.

6. Policy Targeting

   • Policies should target less productive firms, SMEs, poorer NUTS2 regions, and firms needing more skilled labor to enhance productivity. Training and education efforts should focus on firms that benefit most from skill improvement.

Key Conclusions

• Economic development alone does not fully address the skilled worker shortage in EU-27 regions.
• Training is an effective tool for mitigating skill gaps, especially for low-productivity firms.
• Highly educated top managers contribute to improved management and productivity, with firms in poorer regions and SMEs being ideal targets for policy interventions.