Transcript Future Skills Wales 2003 Progress Update

Generic Skills Survey
2003
Organisation
Date
Presentation overview
 Project Outputs
 Employer Evidence
– Skills needed
– Attitudes to skills
– Training behaviour
 Household Evidence
– Attitudes & barriers to employment
– Attitudes to skills
– Attitudes & barriers to learning & advice/guidance
 Skills Gaps & Shortages
 Some thoughts for discussion
Outputs: Employer and Household
 All Wales - Area tables
 Economic regions
– Mid Wales
– North Wales
– South East
– West Wales
 UA tables
 Objective 1 & 3 regions
 SPSS data format and electronic versions of tables
The changing economic background
 Welsh economy has grown since the first Future Skills
Wales in 1998
– But growth has been slow
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–
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–
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Indeed, 2001 was particularly difficult
Job declines in traditional industries
Service sector job rises
So economy is restructuring
Although still weighted towards more basic occupations
 Will affect levels and patterns of employers’ skill needs,
gaps, shortages
Employers & their need for skilled people
 70-80% of employers say that their workforces currently
need ‘high’ or ‘advanced’ levels of skills in the following
areas:
– Understanding customer needs
–
–
–
–
–
Communication
Ability to follow instructions
Showing initiative
Team-working
Flexibility
 This is from a scale of ‘not required’, ‘basic’, ‘intermediate’,
‘high’ and ‘advanced’
And employers say skill needs will rise
 Employers say that their skill needs will rise
 The skills that will most be needed in 3 years’ time will
generally be those most needed now
 But, the largest increases will be in
– IT
– Managerial
– Organising own learning & development
– Welsh language
– Leadership
Employer skills needs: current & future
Understanding customer needs
Communication
Ability to follow instructions
Adaptability/flexibility
Showing initiative
Team working
Ability to learn
Literacy
Current
Future
Numeracy
0.0
1.0
Source: Future Skills Wales Generic Skills Survey 2003
2.0
3.0
4.0
Employer skills needs: current & future
Problem solving
Leadership skills
Organising own learning and development
Management skills
IT skills
Entrepreneurial skills
Welsh language
Current
Future
Foreign language
0.0
Source: Future Skills Wales Generic Skills Survey 2003
1.0
2.0
3.0
Employer skills needs: relative growth
IT skills
Management skills
Organising own learning and development
Welsh language
Leadership skills
Foreign language
Entrepreneurial skills
Problem solving
Ability to learn
Showing initiative
Understanding customer needs
Adaptability/flexibility
Communication
Team working
Numeracy
Literacy
Ability to follow instructions
0
0.1
Source: Future Skills Wales Generic Skills Survey 2003
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
Employers’ attitudes to investing in skills
 Generally, employers have positive attitudes towards skills
– 95 per cent agree that skills are crucial to business
success
 Although many believe that current levels of skills are
sufficient to meet their business needs
– And around 1 in 10 don’t even believe that investing in
skills brings business benefits
Benefits to employers of skills investment
Compete on customer service
35%
Increased productivity
28%
Compete on quality
23%
Raise profits
18%
Grow the business faster
15%
Introduce new products and/or processes
Increased morale
9%
7%
Better trained staff
5%
More understanding/ familiarity of business/
product
2%
Better IT skills/ awareness
2%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%
Source: Future Skills Wales Generic Skills Survey 2003
Employers’ training behaviour
 Relatively speaking, Wales does well
– More report barriers (time, cost) than in 1998
– But 53% train at least some of their employees
– Better than 1998 & than England (2001)
 But many 47% still do not invest in off-the-job training
 And considerable variation in training investment remains
– Bigger firms 
– Public sector 
– Skilled, professional, managerial occupations 
– Agriculture X
– Less skilled occupations X
Off-the-job training by occupation
Managers and Senior Officials
54%
Professional
24%
Associate Professional and Technical
18%
Administrative and Secretarial
30%
Skilled Trades
23%
Personal Service
10%
Sales and Customer Service
22%
Process, Plant and Machine Operatives
7%
Elementary
11%
0%
15%
Source: Future Skills Wales Generic Skills Survey 2003
30%
45%
60%
Employers’ recruitment practices
 When recruiting employers focus on:
– Skills (83% important or fairly important)
– Application process (76%)
– Reputation of previous employer (71%)
– Work experience (69%)
 Qualifications rank least important (57% say important or
fairly important) …… but employers still report lack of
qualifications as a reason for hard-to-fill vacancies
Abilities of school, college and graduate recruits
 49% of establishments recruiting school/college leavers report gaps
between leavers’ skills and those needed by business
• Communication
• Showing initiative
• Numeracy
• Literacy
• Understanding and customer needs
 33% of establishments recruiting graduates report skill gaps
•
•
•
•
Communication
Showing initiative
Work experience
Understanding customer needs
The Welsh people: positive about work
 Wales: lower employment and higher inactivity than England
 But 1/3 of Welsh residents who are out-of-work, would like
paid employment
– A potential source of labour for the Welsh economy
 They are especially keen to take up opportunities in
– Health and social work
– Distribution, hotels and restaurants
– Community, social and personal services
 Less interested in Public admin and Financial services
Some clear barriers to employment
 Disability and ill-health hinder many people’s engagement
with the labour market
– 17% of residents are hindered in the type of work they
undertake
– And half of residents in workless households say that they
are affected by ill-health and disability
 Lack of qualifications are another problem
– 21% of residents have no qualifications
– 37% of workless have none
– 14% of 16-24 year olds have no qualifications (some
because they haven’t got their results yet)
A more subtle barrier?
 Those in work say that their skills are much higher than
employers need
 Those out of work believe that their skills are slightly
higher than those needed by employers
– Perhaps those without work don’t fully realise how
demanding employers are?
– Possible need to provide better information /understanding
to those out of work?
 Especially since it is skills, not qualifications or experience
that decide who actually gets a job
People have positive attitudes to skills
 Most people appreciate the need for greater skills
 Most people want to learn, to obtain formal qualifications
and improve work-related skills
 If in work they believe that
– Their job requires greater skills than previously
– They are more skilled than 3 years ago
– And they get to use full range of skills at work
 And people’s training experiences are mostly favourable:
– Increased confidence (56%)
– Increased ability (49%), New skills (44%)
But beneath the generalisations…
 The desire to train is greatest amongst the higher qualified,
lowest amongst the unqualified
 Managers and professionals have more positive attitudes
to skills development than workers in elementary jobs
 Older residents & those in low level occupations have
particularly low participation in training/learning
– 2/3 older residents (55-64) were not involved in training in
the last 12 months
– 3/4 of those without qualifications were not involved in
learning in the last 12 months
Barriers to learning
 Actual training levels have not changed since 1998
– 46% of residents have not been involved in any form
 Main barriers are
– Lack of time
– Family/childcare commitments
 Traditional learning methods are generally preferred, but
minority of those with no/low qualifications
– Prefer television and practical learning
– Are less comfortable with classrooms /lectures and
computers/internet
 May imply a need for delivery to be more customised?
Residents’ access to advice and guidance
 People depend on informal as well as formal sources
– 18% say job centres/JobCentre Plus the most used source
– 14% say families and colleagues
– 12% prefer to use the internet
 Informal sources may be particularly weak for those living
in communities with high unemployment, ill health, and
poverty
 Need for special support to these communities?
So: can employers get the skills they need?
 22% of Welsh employers report having vacancies
– England 15%, Scotland 18%, NI 16%
 But equivalent to just 2% of Welsh employment
– Below the density for other nations
 And fewer Welsh establishments report hard-to-fill
vacancies than in 1998
– 14% compared with 30%
 Half of these (7%) reflect skill shortages
– 4% in England, Scotland and NI But again, smaller % of
employment than in England (0.5% and 0.8% respectively)
Impact of/responses to hard-to-fill vacancies
 Consequences of hard-to-fill vacancies are
– Loss of business to competitors (16%)
– Inability to grow business (14%)
– Loss of service quality (13%)
– Loss of efficiency (13%)
– Increased pressure on staff (13%)
 Yet just 6 per cent of employers respond by providing
training or personal development opportunities
– Most expand recruitment channels (40%)
– Or expand geography of recruitment (11%)
Skills gaps
 Around 1 in 5 of employers have problems with the skills of
their workforces
– 19% report skills gaps
– That’s below England (23%) but higher than Scotland (16%)
and NI (13%)
 Main problem areas are:
– IT (reported by 24% of employers with gaps)
– Communication skills (21%)
– Showing initiative (12%)
– Problem solving (11%)
– Ability to learn (10%)
Business impacts of skills gaps
 Skills gaps harm competitiveness
– Loss of quality of service (16%)
– Loss of business to competition (16%)
– Loss of efficiency (15%)
 But many employers affected by gaps do respond:
– 56% provide training
– 18% increase availability of apprentice /trainee programmes
Some thoughts for discussion
 Skills needs rising, and for some skills fast growth…running to stand still?
 Employers have positive attitude but how best to encourage all firms to
invest in trainign for less well skilled in lower occupations?
 Encouraging employability and training for those with health and disability
problems?
 Stimulating desire for learning amongst the less well qualified and those
employed in low level occupations?
 Effectively targeting advice and guidance within deprived communities –
positively influencing informal channels?
 Encouraging adults, employed as well as young and entrants to labour
market to take up advice and guidance opportunities in Wales
 Encourage better assessment and self-assessment of generic skills
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