June24619788 No Comments

How businesses can do more to address Britain’s skilled worker shortage

Lloyds Bank’s Business In Britain survey showed a rise in business confidence, but firms also said that it is getting harder and harder for them to find the staff they need to capitalise on it.

The bank reported that while confidence was at an 18 month high, challenges in hiring were at a ten year high.

A staggering 52 per cent of respondents said they struggled to recruit skilled staff in the last six months.

It should be stated at this point that this is no cynical attempt by Lloyds to garner a bit of cheap publicity. The Business in Britain report is in its 25th year and is put together from the views of 1,500 companies, mostly small and medium sized enterprises that are (as we keep being told) the engines of growth. As such, its findings are worthy of note.

Now, regular readers won’t be surprised to see me using this as yet more evidence of just how stupid, and damaging, the current Government’s approach to immigration is.

Making EU residents feel unwelcome, and pandering to racists, will cause real, and lasting economic damage to this country. They’ve already started to vote with their feet, exacerbating the nation’s yawning skills gap.

However, at the same time, it is also fair to ask whether businesses are doing enough to mitigate the problem themselves, and whether their approach to recruitment isn’t making the difficult situation they identify worse than it otherwise might be.

After all, we were talking about the skills gap before the EU referendum and it would likely have continued to cause problems even had David Cameron’s decision to call it not resulted in an outbreak of collective insanity.

Part of the reason why it continues to be an issue is that businesses are failing to exploit the talent that is under their noses.

For example, I constantly highlight the disability employment gap within these pages. Despite the labour shortages Lloyds references, skilled disabled people can’t find jobs.

According to disability charity Scope, the difference between the rate of employment among able bodied people when compared to that of disabled people currently stands at a staggering 31.3 percentage points.

But it isn’t just disabled people. Unemployment is also markedly higher among black and minority ethnic people, about twice the rate found among white Britons in fact.

Last year, I revealed the results of a TUC study that found that the disparity in incomes between BAME workers and their white workers actually increases the more qualifications they get.

Meanwhile, we constantly see reports highlighting poor treatment of female staff, and of LGBT staff.

What all this indicates is that UK businesses are failing to tap into some substantial pools of talented and skilled workers, failing to make the best of the workers from them when that they do hire them, failing to treat them well.

Part of the problem might be being caused by recruitment agencies. Many firms use them, and they may sub consciously, or even deliberately, exclude certain candidates from shortlists to minimise what they misguidedly perceive as “risk”, all with the aim of keeping their clients happy.

 

Read More – www.independent.co.uk

June24619788 No Comments

Employment and Wages Are Up Again But Progress Is Slowing

Wages are on the increase amid near record rates of employment, according to official figures.

Data released by the Office for National Statistics this morning reveals unemployment fell by 47,000 to 1.36m in the three months to August and pay rose by 3.1% over the quarter, compared with a year ago, while inflation for the same period was 2.5%.

There were 32.39m people in work over the quarter – down 5,000 on the previous quarter.

Commenting on the data, Pawel Adrjan, UK economist at the global job site Indeed, said Britain’s labour market is slowly pivoting from job growth to pay growth: “Average pay is now growing at its fastest rate since 2008, and the curtain could finally be starting to come down on the lost decade of stagnant wages.

“With the number of new jobs created flatlining as the economy hovers close to full employment, employers are having to fight harder and pay more to recruit staff.

“For the economy to deliver more sustained pay growth it needs an injection of the labour market ‘X factor’: better productivity.”

Also commenting Recruitment & Employment Confederation CEO Neil Carberry said the data reflected the strong performance of the UK’s flexible jobs market, with wages rising in real terms and near record rates of employment.

“But there is some evidence that progress has slowed as businesses enter a holding pattern ahead of any Brexit deal.

“What we need now is for the government to take a pragmatic approach that delivers a smooth Brexit for the economy – and for people’s jobs. A transition period and longer-term clarity and stability on terms of trade and mobility between the UK and the EU are essential to avoiding a bumpy landing.”

Read more – www.recruiter.co.uk