When we analyze the consolidation of the Valencian Community as the third entrepreneurial ecosystem in Spain and its potential to become one of the innovative and technological poles of reference at an international level, we always talk about the unparalleled framework that this region offers us. And it is that year after year Valencia appears at the top of the rankings of the healthiest or most desired cities to live in.
There is no doubt that we have a privileged environment, an attractive climate, a great quality of life and a rich social and cultural agenda that is a magnet for people to want to work here. But this is not enough for people to decide to establish a working relationship with companies or organizations located here.
Because, if we all do an exercise of honesty and analysis, there are many factors that determine a decision-making such as the choice of a job, and more so when this implies a change of residence, even continent. And that is where the companies of our country, and by extension our region, have it more complicated lately.
I am mainly talking about the innovative and technological ecosystem, since startups and scale-ups are the companies that currently demand the most talent and the ones that find it most difficult to attract it. It makes sense that they are the companies that are currently most in need of highly qualified profiles, since their growth is being exponential and it is a highly specialized sector with a very high volume of technology-based companies.
There is a need for this talent and this talent exists, it comes from our universities and business centers, but also from many other countries. What is the disruptive element that causes startups to encounter this problem of attracting and retaining talent? There is probably no single answer to this question, but there is currently a perfect storm taking place that has caused us to have serious difficulties in finding and hiring these profiles.
As for national talent, remote work has meant that companies from any country can come here to hire. They are usually economies with more purchasing power that offer better salaries. It looks fast, right? I work in an incredible region, I enjoy all the good things that Valencia gives me and I earn higher salaries than the national average. And beware, more and more foreign companies are hiring here, because despite offering better salaries it is cheaper than hiring in their countries of origin.
Would the solution be to increase wages? It is not so simple. There are another series of incentives, for example stock options that would be a stimulus to retain national talent, however they are not a viable option in our current tax legislation. Hopefully the new Startups Law that we are so eagerly awaiting will solve this problem.
This situation leads us, startups, to have to resort to foreign talent. And here we find what always happens when working in an innovative sector that is ahead of the Administration, legislation and the market; The formula we need to retain that talent has not been invented.
And it is here where the key would be the collaboration with the public authorities to eliminate the barriers to contracting. And I say barriers because they are authentic legal walls that are impossible to cross. Startups are realizing that they cannot hire their foreign students for internships, because they do not belong to the European economic market.
To finish rolling the skein, a person who needs to get the NIE has to queue at night at a police station because they give few numbers during the day. Do we really think that with these conditions someone is going to want to work in Spain, in Valencia, when there are other countries where everything is easy? And in this competition we cannot play the trick of the climate and how well it is lived here. I’m not talking about getting hired in Siberia. The countries that eat us the land are Portugal, Greece or Malta. They have more facilities to attract and retain.
We are still in time to solve this part of the equation that is limping us. We can continue innovating, investing and promoting our ecosystem to become a benchmark. However, until we can make it easy for people who want to work here, we will not be truly competitive internationally.
