Professional qualifications and education status of the workforce in Bulgaria

A survey of the Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA) held jointly with the country’s biggest trade unions, Podkrepa and the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions, casts light on the quality of the local workforce. It has been conducted in 1500 enterprises, public institutions and trade unions and is part of a BIA project for the inception of an information system for workforce evaluation. The survey looks into the shape of human resources management in Bulgarian enterprises and into the extent of managers’ readiness to use modern management techniques, says Dimitar Brankov, BIA Vice President. Close to 46% of managers believe that layoffs are not their priority and that companies should make sure they keep their qualified hands. More than 32% think that key experts are exceptionally important in the process of exiting the crisis. A mere 30% of enterprises plan to invest in technologies, renovation and modernization, and this spells out risks for the development of the economy in the long term.

One in five employees or workers in Bulgaria has a capacity below established labour and professional standards, the survey suggests. Having in mind that such standards have been applied to only a limited number of sectors, the share of the people with a level of knowledge, skills and abilities below the requirements of their positions or occupations is much bigger. This looks even worse in the context of the insufficient quality of vocational and university education. To recap, Bulgaria faces serious problems with the qualifications of its workforce causing lower labour productivity and limited competitiveness of Bulgarian companies. Zhechko Dimitrov, BIA Program Director, says more:

“More than 55% of Bulgarian companies invest less than 1 percent in the training of their workers and employers. This happens for various reasons, but we tend to believe that the situation is more or less derived from the flawed structure of vocational and university education in Bulgaria, and could also be the expression of insufficient management culture coupled with mistrust in educational organizations. Well, at the end of the day this is also largely due to the lack of funds. Unlike agriculture and the real sector, the sectors of trade and services tend to invest much more in raising the qualifications of their personnel. For this reason young people do not go near agriculture and industry and opt for jobs in trade and services. Industry has aged, both in terms of technologies and in terms of average personnel age. All this makes it an inferior occupational field for the young.”

The BIA survey also suggests that 30% of Bulgarian enterprises use routine job descriptions that are pretty outdated. This blocks career growth of part of their employees who have developed skills going beyond standard job descriptions. If people with a big potential are kept too long at positions below their abilities, the result is lack of motivation, and finally, moving to a new job.