In just two years Spain becomes the seventh country with the greatest digital maturity in the entire European Unionand yet, over the next decade, it is expected to face a shortage of workers who can benefit from the technological revolution that is already underway. Within the framework of this search and competition for talent to be produced in Spain’s big companies; STEMDOa ‘start-up’ born in the middle of last year is determined to escape the saturated competition for the same profiles in big cities and ‘create’ them in high-unemployment areas like Huelva and Andalusia. but where there are 30 such workers in a few months.
“Our goal is to open new frontiers of opportunity to solve the digital talent shortage in areas such as ‘cloud’, ‘e-commerce’, cybersecurity, metaverse… There is good technological education in many parts of Spain, but outside, El Periódico de España from the Prensa Ibérica group “Madrid, Barcelona and others have always forced workers to either freeze their professional careers or leave the city they live in,” Alfredo told . We believe this is no longer necessary,” explains Montilla, CEO and co-founder of STEMDO.
The name of the start-up company refers to the abbreviation. ROOTis all jobs related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics in English. In other words, workers who will support, for example, the digitalization of administrations, the private sector, the development of the meta-universe, artificial intelligence… According to McKinsey and Company’s research, a brand new industry, ‘Future of Work’, will increase the demand for STEM employment to 30% in 2030. This would create a potential deficit of hundreds of thousands of unfilled positions in Spain.
According to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), more than 145,000 jobs were offered for digital profiles in Spain at the end of last year; these data match those of the Spanish Digitization Association; 120,000 unfilled technology gaps.
But the idea of the company is not to act as a permanent recruitment agency for large companies, but to reach agreements with them to meet specific project needs through a STEM b2b platform.
“It’s often complex and something that delays work a lot, like finding 20 workers with a very specific technological profile for a single project. We would like to be able to deliver that. And we do not do it at the expense of impoverishing the workerbecause our idea is that the employment conditions we offer you are so competitive that a large company cannot come and take you so easily,” says the CEO, noting that 80% of job offers provide this.
So what they propose at STEMDO is to create new jobs in areas where there is already a basic training environment but not an adequately developed industry, rather than companies fighting for the same workers in Madrid or Barcelona.
“Today these are regions where there are no such jobs and there are normally some jobs as well. high unemployment rates. We provide trainings on the latest technologies, pay their wages from the first day and try to keep this talent by improving their conditions. The region is good for employees and companies,” explains Montilla, who also ensures there is a constant dialogue with local governments.
He says the key to retaining talent at his company is through competitive salary offer and the possibility of working in a flexible face-to-face and telecommuting model. Companies, says STEMDO, value employees going to an office at least a few days a week, especially in the early stages of every project and when they are younger profiles.
Thirty jobs have already been created in Huelva
Developed in Huelva, where unemployment is around 18%, his first project created 30 such direct jobs, i.e. specializing in ‘cloud’ technologies including education.
Their aim is to create at least two more offices in other provinces with similar characteristics in 2023: population of 100,000 to 200,000 inhabitants, where digital employment is not yet viable, but there is already established technological education, both universities as vocational education.