2024 is presented as a year of consolidation of the digitalization trend, but without forgetting traditional sectors that move the majority of offers, such as hospitality and commerce. Algorithms and tourists will coexist in a more contained year after the good 2023, with rising salaries in lower sections.
Technology continues to boom. We’ve been talking about big data and AI for years. Now also with the focus on cybersecurity. “In Spain we do not have the capacity to cover everything that is needed,” believes Javier Blasco, director of The Adecco Group Institute. He attributes this to a lack of training, advice and investment in R&D. In the technology sector specifically, the profiles in demand include AI programming engineers or cybersecurity experts, but it is already permeating the rest of the working world. Blasco talks about a “digital layer” that is expanding. “All jobs are going to be reinvented, enriched by AI.”
For example, a warehouse worker who knows how to interact with robots. Or lawyers with basic knowledge of ethics applied to AI. “Digitalization is something widespread. Technology has become a very transversal position, highly in demand in all sectors,” agrees Mónica Pérez, director of studies at Infojobs.
The digitalization wave drove an increase in salaries in its sector, the fight to attract talent and high turnover. Everything decreases. “It is a pendulum effect, going from a very high demand to a reduction and stabilization,” says Pérez. The firm highlights the educational sector in general, from early ages – fewer children per class need more teachers – to job training and vocational training. “There is a shortage of professionals who teach new technologies,” she warns. He also points to sustainability and renewables. Blasco remembers that after the pandemic, care, biological sciences and pharmaceuticals are struggling.
In any case, the economy continues to have a great weight on services. “Large volumes are driven by positions of teleoperators, commercial agents and customer service; and logistics and warehouse. They will continue to do so. They concentrate up to 40% of the jobs offered,” explains Pérez. And in hospitality “there continues to be a mismatch between supply and demand,” warns Blasco. In the midst of a tourism boom “we must improve the qualifications of the sector. We are going to continue having problems, so either we improve salaries or we go to a lower level model.” The danger is losing visitors.
The year will leave a certain exhaustion. After a good 2023, Infojobs has just recorded a drop of close to 10% in offers in December, between the slowdown in employment and the impact of discontinuous permanent contracts, which make it unnecessary to publish offers like other years. And the salaries? They expect a similar tone to last year, but the high salary bands have reached their ceiling and the effort will focus on the lower ones.
In order not to be left behind and to differentiate the formation, throw in a cable. Caoimhe Carlos, from the online training and teaching platform Udemy, points out that “AI has been the global training trend in 2023 and will continue to be so in 2024.” “It is an essential skill to remain competitive and innovative.” In addition, other points stand out such as programming languages ??(CSS), the cloud (with attention to AWS) and information security. “Continuous training becomes the cornerstone of employability,” he says. This promotes agility, resilience and innovation, “highly valued by companies.”
Carlos does not venture with a number of training sessions that must be done per year. “It varies according to the needs of the industry, the company and the roles”, with a mix of improving existing skills (upskilling) and learning new ones (reskilling).
