One in five SMEs based in Brussels wants to hire people from abroad to make up for the labour shortage as they are increasingly struggling to fill vacancies.
Four in ten small to medium-sized businesses in the Brussels-Capital Region are not finding sufficient qualified candidates for the number of vacancies they have. As a result, they are looking to other, more creative hiring processes to fill the gap.
"SMEs are not prepared to give up and have often already implemented one or more solutions. It is striking that one in five SMEs in Brussels wants to hire employees from abroad (21.07%)," said Annelies Rottiers, Strategic Advisor for SMEs at SD Worx.
The most popular solution is to recruit and retrain people with less experience (39.63%), while one in three will increase productivity (meaning doing more with fewer employees). Others are focussing on internal redeployment and training (15.93%), or even accepting less work (16.76%).
Situation in Flanders and Wallonia
Despite being in a dire situation, Brussels is still better off than Belgium's other regions. In Flanders and Wallonia, half of the SMEs state they are not able to fill their vacancies due to a low inflow of experienced employees. In the industry and construction sectors, this shortage is particularly noticeable.
In Flanders, as many as one in four companies are considering refusing work due to the labour shortage. One in three is looking to recruit and train people with less experience; while the same number wants to work with freelancers.
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In the region, only one in ten SMEs is thinking about foreign employees (11.7%), while the same goes for looking for candidates across the provincial border (9.8%).
