Prime minister Gordon Brown, who pledged to run ‘a new government with new priorities’, must start by tackling the UK’s skill shortages, it has been claimed.
The call has come from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), the association for the recruitment industry, which has claimed that thousands of recruiters are facing serious skills shortages every day.
A new study by the REC and KPMG has found that recruitment was cited as the top problem faced by more than half of UK businesses, ahead of business strategy and management.
The study also found that the battle for skills and talented staff is compelling employers to change the way they manage staffing and is fuelling the trend to advertise jobs online.
The REC has also called upon new chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling to offer financial support to the skills agenda.
Helen Reynolds, REC’s acting chief executive officer, said: “In relation to new priorities, the first I would give the chancellor would be skills.
“The new government needs a new strategy to ensure that the children of today become the skilled workers businesses need tomorrow.”
These sentiments were echoed by a separate study by the Forum of Private Business (FPB), which found that 80% of small firms supported a proposal that Darling should introduce tax credits to encourage professional development.
Around 80% of the small businesses questioned said that further education should be more focused on the needs of business and 70% wanted more influence on the formulation of skills initiatives.
FPB research manager Rebecca Leavers said that smaller businesses did not feel that they were being engaged in skills and training.
She said: “Our members believe more must be done by the government, not only to understand what smaller businesses want from new employees but also to reduce the cost of training current staff.”
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2007
