Understanding which skills employers want and gaining an insight into the investment they make in skills and workplace development is not only critical to our economic health, but important on a day-to-day basis for individuals and businesses alike.
The 2011 UK Employer Skills Survey has gathered information from over 87,500 employers across the UK – over 6,000 of them based in Wales - in large and small businesses in every sector and is one of the largest employer skills surveys undertaken anywhere in the world.
The First Findings Report gives a quick snapshot of the UK-level information emerging from the project. A more detailed analysis, including Wales-level information will be available when the Main Report and separate National Reports are published in Spring 2012.
The key findings show that at first glance the labour market is generally able to meet demand, with just 12% of establishments reporting vacancies at the time of the survey. Those with vacancies reported an average of 2.4 vacancies per establishment, with the largest proportion of vacancies in the public administration and defence, and education sectors.
Only a quarter of all vacancies (23%) were reported as “hard to fill”, with a majority of these being caused by skill shortages. Hard-to-fill vacancies also impacted other staff by increasing their workload and affected the businesses’ ability to meet customer demand. Skilled trades had the greatest prevalence of skill shortage vacancies and the most commonly lacking skills were job specific skills.
Although the majority of establishments have the skills they require, 13% reported skills gaps or deficiencies (where employees are deemed not fully proficient in their role). The main causes of skills gaps were reported as workers new to the role and training only partially completed.
Only 24% of employers were found to have recruited directly from the education system in the previous 2-3 years, with 59% finding 16 year old school leavers well prepared for work and 64% finding 17-18 year old school leavers as prepared. This figure increased to 72% for 17-18 year olds recruited from college and 82% for those from higher education.
In terms of investment in skills and workforce development, 59% of all establishments had trained staff on- or off-the job in the 12 months prior to the survey, and three-quarters (76%) had provided some form of wider learning. The occupations with the highest proportion of staff who received training in the previous 12 months was in caring, leisure and other service occupations.
Only 17% of establishments provided neither training nor wider learning activities. Staff being considered fully proficient was the main reason cited for not providing training.
The survey indicates that larger establishments were more likely to train employees, along with those considered innovative, or in the public administration and defence, education, or health and social work sectors. Also establishments that identified skills gaps were far more likely to train.
It is estimated that £49bn was spent on training in the 12 months prior to the survey. 38% of employers had a training plan in place, 29% a training budget and 65% of those who did provide training assessed its impact. The most common types of training were job specific training and health and safety/first aid training. In addition, a quarter of establishments had trained staff towards a nationally recognised qualification.
The full report First Findings from the 2011 UK Employer Skills Survey is available at http://www.ukces.org.uk/publications/ukess-2011-first-findings
The Welsh Government is seeking to expand and broaden the use of LMI across Wales. This is one of a regular series of articles which will be appearing in the DYSG newsletter and on the Learning and Skills Observatory website
If you have any comments about the sorts of LMI you value in your work and how LMI has been of benefit to you, we’d like to hear from you. For this and further information about the LMI project contact Rachel Stephens, Senior Skills Policy Manager at the Welsh Government at rachel.stephens2@wales.gsi.gov.uk
