If Russia’s awful, brutal war on Ukraine has had one positive outcome, it is that governments in Europe, particularly those which border, or are close to, Russia, have realised that they need to get their defences in order. That does not merely mean building taller, more impenetrable border fences (although some have wisely done that), or purchasing the latest military hardware, but also ensuring that should the worst come to the worst, they will have enough trained boots on the ground to defend themselves. The availability of military personnel has become a priority.
Across Central and Eastern Europe, reservists are being put through their paces, skills refreshed and upgraded. Generous stipends are being offered to young, talented men and women who might otherwise eschew military service in those countries where it is not obligatory. This is defence talent as infrastructure, as important as roads and railways.
It’s not the most natural of segues, and may at first glance appear flippant, but it is perhaps relevant to suggest that the time has come to treat talent in other areas in much the same way. A shortage of IT workers might not be quite so critical as a shortage of good soldiers (although the two things are far from mutually exclusive: Ukraine’s armed forces, packed with start-up founders who ditched the office for the front lines, have proven exactly that) but their contribution to the well-being of an economy is no less important.
The same goes for workers in any number of other lucrative sectors. If a country doesn’t have enough, how can it build and/or defend its knowledge economy?
Workers, a strategic asset
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned last week that Poland’s growth could be threatened by a lack of skilled workers. In Romania, nearly 60 per cent of tech companies report difficulties finding candidates with the right expertise. Even Estonia, despite its digital prowess, struggles to fill vacancies in cybersecurity, requiring approximately 200 new specialists annually. Across the region, growth risks being throttled not by lack of investment or ambition, but by a simple shortage of people who know what they’re doing.
The problem is that most governments still treat talent as something that happens to them, rather than something they can deliberately cultivate and retain. Companies are expected to train their own staff. Universities churn out graduates with varying degrees of relevance to actual market needs. Meanwhile, the best and brightest decamp to London or San Francisco.
Treating talent as infrastructure means thinking about it differently. Roads don’t build themselves, and neither do skilled workforces. It requires long-term planning, substantial investment and a willingness to subsidise things that won’t pay off for years. It’s no different to how governments approach physical infrastructure. The private sector doesn’t decide where motorways should go. Railway lines do not spontaneously appear where they’re needed. They are planned, funded, and built (usually by the private sector).
The same logic applies to human capital, and some countries at least recognise as much. Singapore has long treated its workforce as a strategic asset, with the government directly funding retraining programmes and offering generous subsidies for companies to upskill staff. The city-state’s SkillsFuture initiative hands each citizen a credit to spend on approved courses. It’s not perfect (critics argue that, like so much in Singapore, it benefits those already in secure employment) but it demonstrates a clear recognition that talent doesn’t just happen.
Europe is not without worthy examples. Estonia’s IT Academy, launched in 2012, has trained thousands of software developers through partnerships between government, universities and the private sector. Graduates are guaranteed jobs. The scheme costs money, but Estonia treats this as infrastructure spending, not welfare.
Time to mobilise
Yet most Central and Eastern European governments remain timid. They tinker with visa rules to attract foreign workers (helpful, but not enough), offer modest tax breaks for research and development spending (also helpful, but insufficient), and hope for the best. What’s missing is the kind of comprehensive, long-term commitment that building infrastructure demands. This means investing seriously in technical education, not just at university level but throughout the system. It means paying teachers of STEM subjects enough that they don’t leave for better pay abroad. It means creating pathways for mid-career professionals to retrain, particularly as entire industries get upended by automation and artificial intelligence.
It also means accepting that some talent will need to be imported. Just as no country can build all its own infrastructure from domestic materials alone, no country can meet all its talent needs purely from native-born citizens. Smart immigration policy (fast-tracked visas for needed skills, recognition of foreign qualifications, language training and support for integration) is part of treating talent as infrastructure.
Yes, electorates in many countries (particularly Central and Eastern Europe) are wary of, even hostile to, immigration, making it politically risky to advocate openly for importing talent. Public finances are tight, and investing in education delivers results only over decades. The private sector, asked to contribute more to training, complains about free-riding competitors who poach their freshly minted specialists.
But these are exactly the kinds of coordination problems that governments exist to solve. No individual company will invest properly in training if it thinks rivals will simply steal its staff. No individual will spend years retraining if there’s no guarantee of employment at the end. Markets alone won’t fix this. Infrastructure, by definition, requires collective action.
Back on that defence front, governments have accepted the need to spend whatever it takes to ensure they have enough soldiers. They know that without adequate military personnel, everything else from fancy weapons and clever strategy becomes irrelevant. The same logic applies to economic defence. Without enough skilled workers, a country’s ambitions for growth, innovation, and prosperity amount to little more than wishful thinking. Time, perhaps, to mobilise.
Photo: Dreamstime.
