20 November 2024
Museo Artium de Vitoria-Gasteiz
Orkestra-Basque Institute of Competitiveness (Deusto Foundation) presented the Basque Country Competitiveness Report 2024 on November 20 at the Artium Museum in Vitoria-Gasteiz, in an event attended by the second vice-president of the Basque Government and Minister of Economy, Labor and Employment, Mikel Torres; and the Deputy General of Alava, Ramiro Gonzalez.
The report entitled “Inclusion, engine of competitiveness and welfare” and prepared with the collaboration of the SPRI Group highlights the need to promote inclusive competitiveness in order to generate welfare. It maintains the idea that the more people participate in the very processes of building competitiveness, the more inclusive the resulting welfare will be, and calls for taking advantage of the opportunities generated by diversity to achieve this dual objective. To this end, it analyzes three demographic characteristics: gender, age and place of origin of the population.
According to Orkestra, the combination of an aging population and a much more diverse population in terms of place of origin has important implications for the competitiveness of our territory. “Promoting the participation of the entire population in competitiveness processes is crucial to increase activity rates and ensure generational replacement in companies, as well as to address the need for talent in strategic sectors,” assured Orkestra's CEO, Mari Jose Aranguren, during the presentation of the report.
Managing and leading diversity in companies, taking advantage of its potential to improve innovation, internationalization and organizational performance is also a fundamental aspect that has been addressed in a round table moderated by Mercedes Oleaga, senior technician at Orkestra, with the participation of the CEO of Betsaide and president of ASLE, Beatriz Gonzalez; the director of Technology, Innovation and Sustainability of SPRI, Cristina Oyón; the director of Ikuspegi, Julia Shershneva; and the director of the Basque Youth Council, Iratxe Uriarte.
Conclusions of the report
The main conclusion of the report is that we are not taking advantage of the participation or capabilities of all people living in the Basque Country, particularly women and people of foreign origin; which is a brake on the social progress and economic development of the territory.
As James Wilson, Orkestra's research director, explained, in the case of women there are obstacles such as the distribution of care tasks: “Employed women spend almost 5 hours a day on childcare activities and men around 3 and a half hours; and something similar happens with the care of the elderly”.
In the case of foreign-born people, who make up 17% of the working age population and are at the heart of the Basque population pyramid, the report points out that they are in more elementary occupations and that there is a 34.3% wage gap with respect to local people. It also points to the need to “ensure their integration into the training system in a way that is aligned with the needs of companies”.
According to Susana Franco, senior researcher at Orkestra, the Basque Country shows high general levels of welfare, but there are certain aspects that require attention in order to achieve truly inclusive welfare: “In the case of young people, the wage gap is 27.9% for the 25-34 age group with respect to people aged 55 and over. These results are transferred to the difficulties in accessing housing, since 83% of the residential needs detected in the Basque Country in 2023 were of people between 18 and 44 years old without emancipation and who need to access their first home”.
To reverse this situation, Orkestra proposes to implement mechanisms that allow people to join the labor market, such as training programs, streamline the processes of recognition of qualifications to facilitate access of migrants to more qualified jobs and promote intergenerational relations.
In this regard, the president of Orkestra called for harnessing the capabilities of each and every person living in the Basque Country.“If diversity is strategically managed by promoting initiatives that facilitate the development of skills and the participation of people of different ages, gender and place of origin, a positive impact on innovation, productivity and competitiveness will be generated”, assured Iván Martén.
New panel of indicators, updated in real time
The report also makes the usual diagnosis of results, which shows a positive evolution of the economy and welfare, with some challenges in the transition to sustainability:
- GDP per capita shows a solid evolution and has grown more than the European average
- All the indicators that reflect the capacity of the economic-business system to generate profitability from its activities are evolving positively: unit labor costs have been reduced, there are improvements in productivity that are accompanied by the generation of employment, and business profitability has grown.
- Innovation continues to be a pending task for many SMEs. The innovative culture must continue to be fostered and the barriers to access to innovation must be addressed, especially for small companies.
- Of concern are aspects such as median household income, which has fallen in the last two years, and the increase in energy poverty.
- There has been an improvement in all indicators related to education and employment, generally to a greater extent than in Europe.
- The share of renewable energies, below average and declining compared to the EU-27, represents one of the biggest challenges for the transformation towards a more sustainable economy.
The evolution of all these dimensions is available and updated, in real time, in a new panel of indicators of the Orkestra Competitiveness Observatory: https://labur.eus/kgCE5
