What are the soft skills most valued by Peruvian employers?

70% of employers in Peru say they have difficulties finding talented people and skills they need to fill a job position. Globally, the figure reaches 77%, its highest level in 17 years, according to the ManpowerGroup report The New Human Age.

“This is also a post-pandemic product in which the way of working and business modalities have changed. Many have changed the way of doing things and from there we need to be very agile to modify our skills or abilities,” says Silvana Cárdenas, director of Right Management Latin America at ManpowerGroup.

What are the soft skills that employers are looking for?

According to the Employment Outlook survey for the third quarter of 2023, also prepared by ManpowerGroup, the new skills sought by employers are related to the combination of innovation, technology and human ingenuity.

In detail, in the Consumer Goods and Services sector, 67% of local organizations report difficulties finding the talent they need. In this segment, the most demanded skills are the following:

1. Responsibility, trust and discipline
2. Leadership and social influence
3. taking initiative
4. Resilience, stress tolerance and adaptability
5. Collaboration, teamwork, reasoning and problem solving

While in Energy and Public Services, a sector in which 56% of organizations indicate that they cannot find the right talent, the most valuable skills are the following:

1. Resilience, stress tolerance and adaptability
2. Analysis and critical thinking
3. Creativity and originality
4. Reasoning and problem solving
5. taking initiative

Regarding Finance and Real Estate, a sector that reaches 66% difficulty in hiring a new employee, the most sought after characteristics are the following:

1. Resilience, stress tolerance and adaptability
2. Collaboration and teamwork
3. Responsibility, trust and discipline
4. taking initiative
5. Critical thinking and analysis, active learning and curiosity

For its part, in communication services, a segment in which 76% of companies have difficulty finding their employees, the top 5 skills requested are as follows:

1. Responsibility, trust and discipline
2. Leadership and social influence
3. Creativity and originality
4. Active learning and curiosity
5. Collaboration and teamwork, and reasoning and problem solving.

What are the top priorities for employees?

One of the main characteristics that employees take into account, currently, are the opportunities in green growth industries. They seek companies to demonstrate their social and environmental impact with a more science-based approach.

For this reason, organizations are already talking about the ESG (Environmental social and governance) policy. In this regard, 78% of companies have or are developing these objectives, but only 6% say they have the talent they need to achieve them.

Another characteristic that employees take into account is “Not living to work, but a job that gives you a living.” In other words, people of all ages and genders seek employers who recognize and actively support a healthier work-life balance.

A new trend that has emerged in the aftermath of the pandemic is interest in hybrid work. According to ManpowerGroup, 87% of employees do not want to work full-time in person and, of these, 42% prefer this new model.