Skills shortages hit hard

A major skills shortage continues to blight the manufacturing and engineering sectors, according to specialist manufacturing recruitment company EMS Sigma.

And while steps are now being made to plug the gap, it will be at least five years before the fruits of these efforts are seen, according to Roy Davies, managing director of EMS Sigma, which has regional offices in the north-west and Yorkshire. (Runcorn and Leeds)

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Mr Davies first warned of a potential crisis situation two years ago in a bulletin produced in association with The Learning and Skills Council. In it, he revealed that in 2003 just 17,000 manufacturing and engineering graduates were coming out of UK universities, of which 40% were overseas students likely to return to their own countries.

Mr Davies said: ìThis left us at an all-time low and while figures have recovered slightly since to around 23,000 graduates annually, there are still serious inherent problems as these people will take some time to feed through into the system proper.

ìWith not enough young people undertaking engineering degrees or HNDs, there are, quite simply, insufficient qualified engineers coming through the ranks ñ and problems will increase as manufacturing continues to grow because there will be less and less people to do the jobs available.

ìThis situation is even more acute because the number of people going into apprenticeships is also at an all-time low ñ a direct result of cost-cutting by some companies.

ìIn addition, many skills have been lost from the industry sector because when redundancies were made during the last recession, people tended to look to retrain and move into other sectors.

ìThe main shortage is on the bread and butter side ñ in the mechanical and electrical arenas. People with machinery and maintenance skills, along with chemical engineers, are becoming rarer and rarer.

Mr Davies also reckons bad PR for the sector has contributed to the decline. He comments: ìPeople see a job in manufacturing as boring, repetitive and lacking prospects, which is simply not true.

ìYet, the media portrait of manufacturing is not a good one and there are now less job seekers, with people increasingly looking at opportunities in the services sector instead.

ìThis is a little odd when considering that manufacturing is very robust at the moment and the only sector showing growth in the last economic quarter. Nationally, manufacturing now represents 13% of the GDP, yet there are still so many negative perceptions.

ìFortunately, the Learning and Skills Council is now working hand in hand with other organisations, such as the Manufacturing Institute, to redress the balance, while we are also beginning to see the green shoots of the resurrection of apprenticeships, as more and more companies realise that they must grow their own workforces of the future.

ìWhile these are positive signs, there is still a long, long way to go and it will be at least five tough years before we see these efforts bearing fruit.

ìWe are happy to support these vital campaigns at every turn. In the interim, the market remains extremely candidate-led and there are major job opportunities for anyone worth their salt. We are helping wherever possible by advising our clients on how to make sure their jobs look as attractive as possible to potential employees.î