The EMS industry often continues to be viewed as being "unsexy” by applicants, despite the many technological achievements and engineering performances in recent years. Employees often do not realise the enormous bandwidth of fields of activities available in the development and production business, but tend instead to plan their careers in one of the “more well-known” firms. As an EMS service provider “only” operates in the background, the EMS solutions are marked with the brand names of the internationally renowned technology corporations, and not "Lacon”. Yet as we know, knowledge is the first step towards improvement, indeed many of the EMS firms present at the Markt&Technik congress have already taken several steps in the direction of "innovative recruiting”. As the company name is frequently not sufficient to be an effective lure, Lacon, for example, has introduced “applicant days” that are held several times during the year. Students from schools, technical colleges and universities are addressed at job fairs, and are then invited to take part in a practical day in Lacon’s production buildings. They they find out more about precisely what the company does and can hold discussions with potential coworkers. At the congress held by the WEKA Verlag, Lacon CEO Dr Hasler discussed the difficult search for skilled workers in the EMS business with the other participants:
The requirements for EMS are also »intrinsically far higher than in other businesses«, said Ralf Hasler, CEO of Lacon and used an example to describe what he meant: »If an engineer works for an automotive OEM, they have a clear, manageable range of articles. If they come to us they are confronted by immense diversity.« (Source: WEKA FACHMEDIEN GmbH, elektronik.net, Author: Karin Zühlke)
