Title: SKILL%20SHORTAGES%20IN%20THE%20UK%20ISSUES,%20PROBLEMS%20AND%20WAYS%20FORWARD
1SKILL SHORTAGES IN THE UK ISSUES, PROBLEMS AND
WAYS FORWARD
- Ewart Keep
- Deputy Director,
- ESRC Centre on Skills, Knowledge
- Organisational Performance,
- University of Warwick,
- Coventry, CV4 7AL,
- ENGLAND
- E-Mail skopeek_at_wbs.ac.uk
2INTRODUCTION
- Skill Shortages and public policy Moral Panic
about VET - Two Dimensions to Skills Shortages
- Employers difficulty in obtaining skills they
need - International comparisons of stocks of skills
- The importance of defining what the problem
really is - The changing meaning of skills
- The UKs threefold policy response on skills
- Boost publicly-funded VET
- Targets
- Forecasting, planning and matching
- Deeper tensions
- The dawn of a new approach skills and what
else?
3UK VET AND MORAL PANIC IN PUBLIC POLICY
- Skills as THE key to national competitiveness
- Skills as THE key to performance at firm level
- Skills as THE key to a host of problems
- Unemployment and social inclusion
- Lack of strong sense of citizenship
- Poverty and welfare dependency
- Crime and drug abuse
- Anti-social behaviour
- The current wave of UK concern started in 1976
and is ongoing. - Bound up with visions of the Knowledge Driven
Economy
4AND IN THE USA TOO
- The surge of global competition into our
labor markets, sweeping technological change, and
impending shifts in the demographic mix of our
labor force call for a national campaign to
improve the skills and professionalism of the
American workforce. We must create new learning
partnerships throughout our communities and
workplaces to sustain the jobs that provide for
our middle class, pay the social costs of health,
education and retirement, and preserve
capabilities necessary for our nations
security. -
- Task Force on Workforce Development, Albert
Shanker Institute/New Economy Information
Service, Learning PartnershipsStrengthening
American Jobs In the Global Economy, 20042
5SKILL SHORTAGESTWO REASONS TO WORRY
- Skill shortages as defined by international
league tables. Here the focus of concern is
that other countries appear to have workforces
with a higher stock of skills (qualifications)
than your own. The shortage is comparative. - Skills shortages as defined by employers who
cannot recruit to fill vacancies (or who have
concerns about the skills of their existing
workforce). - In the UK these two definitions have interacted
to fuel public policy concern about skills supply
and the operation of the VET system.
6EMPLOYERS SKILL SHORTAGES UK EXPERIENCES
- New Labour come to power in 1997 and start to
worry about an over-heating economy and skill
shortages as a cause of inflation and a block on
productivity improvement. - The National Skills Task Force (NSTF) is
appointed to investigate the scale and nature of
the problem and to recommend what might be done. - The NSTF was made up of VET supply managers,
employers, trade unions, with a secretariat from
government. It commissioned a large programme of
research.
7DEFINE YOUR PROBLEM
- The NSTF swiftly concluded that vague and
loose terminology made it very hard to categorise
the nature and discern the scale of the problems
that underlay the reported skill shortages. - Their solution was to divide the problem into
three different categories - EXTERNAL RECRUITMENT PROBLEMS
- Hard to Fill Vacancies (HtFVs)
- Skill Shortage Vacancies (SSVs)
- INTERNAL PROBLEMS
- Skill Gaps
- Clearer definition was seen as the key to
better targeted public policy interventions.
Diagnose the problem accurately and then select
an appropriate cure.
8AND THESE MEAN?
- Hard to Fill Vacancies are vacancies reported by
employers to be hard to fill. - Where HtFVs are due to a shortage of applicants
with the required experience, qualifications or
skills, they are regarded as Skill Shortage
Vacancies. - Skill gaps are defined as occurring when
employers regard some of their staff as not being
fully proficient to meet the requirements of
their job. - These definitions now operate within the UKs
four national VET systems and determine how data
is collected and policy responses are formulated.
9CLOSER DEFINTION OF THE PROBLEM MEANS THE PROBLEM
DIMINISHES SHARPLY
- The NSTFs work paid off. Once the new
definitions were applied at a stroke about 80 per
cent of the skill shortages within recruitment
vanished. - Using large-scale surveys (the 2004 National
Employer Skill Survey covering England had a
sample of 70,000 plus establishments), we now
have a very accurate picture of HtFVs, SSVs and
skill gaps, by - Sector
- Region
- Locality
- Occupation
10THE PICTURE IN 2004
- At the time of the survey
- 14 of establishments had vacancies
- 8 of establishments had HtFVs
- 4 of establishments had SSVs
- Number of vacancies 766,000
- Number of HtFVs 358,000
- Number of SSVs 159,000
- HtFVs as a of employment were 3.7
- HtFVs as a of vacancies were 47
- SSVs as a of employment 0.8
- SSVs as a of vacancies 21
11NESS 2004 CONTINUED
- Skill Gaps
- of establishments with skill gaps 23
- Skill gaps as of employment 9
- Most skill gaps are transitory. They are
caused by the arrival of new workers, who need
training. - Between 2001 and 2004,
- The level of SSVs stayed static.
- HtFVs increased by over 50
12Table A Density of Recruitment Problems by
Occupation
Vacancies Vacancies as employment in occupation HtFVs as age of all vacancies SSVs as age of all vacancies
Managers 35,237 1.3 34.5 18.2
Professionals 51,835 1.7 37.1 24.3
Associate Professionals 81,142 4.4 38.8 23.6
Admin. Secretarial 84,010 2.9 23.2 11.1
Skilled Trades 63,391 3.3 62.5 39
Personal Services 74,169 6.1 51.4 23.7
Sales, Customer Service 116,662 3.4 32 12.4
Operatives 57,740 3.4 50.3 27
Elementary Occupations 107,393 3.5 40.3 14
All Occupations 679,072 3.1 40 19.9
Source IFF/IER National Employers Skills Survey,
2003 (LSC 2004) Base Employee-Weighted
13Skill Shortages as age of Vacancies
14GAPS MAY BE A GOOD SIGN
- Research (Mason, Zwick) suggests that skill
gaps are associated with organisations that are
seeking to - improve their productivity
- expand their product range
- upgrade product or service quality
- introduce new equipment (e.g. ICT)
- develop new markets
- An economy with few skill gaps may be an
economy with a lot of path dependent firms who
are not responding to competitive pressures very
well. - As long as the gaps are transitory, they are
probably a good sign.
15THE CHANGING MEANING OF SKILL A RISE OF GENERIC
SOFT SKILLS
- Survey and case study data suggests that many
SSVs occur because of problems with
soft/interpersonal and generic skills. This is
particularly so in the service sector. - There are many facets to this development as they
impact on the ability of the VET system to
respond - Rise of generic skills, such as problem solving.
Some of these generic skills may be less generic
than assumed. Also the issue of where they are
best created education or the workplace in
which they will be applied. - Rise of personal attributes (self-discipline,
loyalty, punctuality, motivation) which may not
be skills per se, and which may reflect employee
relations conditions in the workplace. - Rise of aesthetic labour looking right and
sounding right!
16SOFT AND GENERIC SKILLS FURTHER CHALLENGES FOR VET
- Challenges for certification systems in the UK,
where the demands of rigorous public
examination mean that soft key skills go
uncertified. - Aesthetic skills are not traditionally part of
VET. They pose a large challenge. Ensuring that
candidates present themselves for interview in an
hotel or fashion boutique as being, passionate,
stylish, confident, tasty, clever, successful and
well-travelled (Warhurst and Nixon, 2001) is
tricky. - Quite a lot of these new skills appear to be
proxies for middleclassness.
17HOW HAS POLICY TRIED TO RESPOND ON LABOUR
SHORTAGES AND HtFVs?
- Boosting already relatively high
participation in employment - Return to work for those on disability benefit
- New Deals for the long-term unemployed
- In work tax breaks to make low paid work pay
- Migrant labour (especially from New EU states)
- Illegal immigrants Treasury not too worried
- TENSIONS
- Department for Work and Pensions work first,
any work - Department for Trade Industry some jobs may
not be worth having
18LABOUR FLOW DIAGRAM
- The Labour Market
- 5 Blue Chip jobs
- 20 Professional/ Managerial
- 10 Associate Professional
- 15 Craft/Technician
- 35 Clerical/Retail/ Production
- 15 Awful Jobs
The Education System
19HOW HAS POLICY TRIED TO RESPOND ON SKILL?
- Given
- Beliefs about the role of skills in international
competitiveness - International comparisons of skill stocks that
showed the UK in a poor comparative light at some
skill levels. - Modest levels of skills shortages and gaps in the
economy - How have the four UK national governments driven
policy on skill? - ANSWER A threefold policy response on skills
- Boost publicly-funded VET
- Targets
- Forecasting, planning and matching
- England is the most extreme example of planning,
- Scotland of spending and supply.
20BOOSTING SUPPLY TO MATCH OVERSEAS COMPETITORS
- Over the last 25 years England has
- Massively expanded post-compulsory participation
among the 16-19 age-group. - Massively expanded its higher education system
- Increased government support for employer
training, through apprenticeships and now through
schemes for adult workforce. - Created a state of permanent revolution in the
institutional structures that control, manage,
fund, inspect and deliver VET. - Centralised the control of the VET system in the
hands of central government and its agencies.
21WEAKNESSES REMAIN
- Relatively low participation post-17. Reflects
structure of youth labour market and labour
market regulation (e.g. licence to practice). - Adult literacy and numeracy (basic skills)
problem are quite extensive.
22TARGETS FOR EVERYTHING - NOT A HAPPY STORY
- The English VET system is now managed via a range
of national targets. Some are set by central
government, others by the Learning and Skills
Council (LSC). - The central government Public Service Agreement
(PSA) targets are set without any consultation
with external actors or users of the Vet system. - The LSCs National Learning Targets (NLTs) are
supposed to have secured buy-in from employers
and others. - The PSA targets over-ride the NLTs in terms of
priority for funding and other public resources. - It is far from clear that the PSA targets relate
in any way to future projections of need for
skills or qualifications. They appear to be
driven (as are the NLTs) by international
comparisons of skill stocks.
23PROBLEMS WITH THE NLTs
- The NLTs are supposed to be minimum
international benchmark standards that must be
met to ensure economic success. The NLTs have a
long history of failure - Of the 8 targets set by the Confederation of
British Industry in 1991 for achievement in 1997,
just 2 were met. - Of the 6 targets set by NACETT in 1994 for
achievement in 2000, only 1 was met. - Of NACETTs second set of 4 targets to be
achieved in 2002, only 1 was met. - Of the 5 NLTs set by the LSC for achievement in
2004, only 1 was met in full, despite the fact
that the 2004 NLTs were less ambitious than those
set by NACETT for achievement in 2000. - No new NLTs have yet been set.
24AN EXAMPLE OF TARGET VERSUS NEED
- One of the governments key VET targets is one
set by the Prime Minister himself that England
achieve 50 participation in HE by the 18-30
cohort. - This target was established without reference to
need in the economy for graduate level skills. - Given achievement patterns in England, this
means that the vast bulk of those with
intermediate level qualifications, academic and
vocational, need to enter HE to meet the target. - Sectors like engineering, that still need
substantial numbers of young people to train as
apprentices and technicians, and to fill
intermediate level skill jobs, are faced with the
prospect of big skill shortages. Employers
complain the target is dangerous.
25RE-ENTER THE DRAGON THE RETURN OF MANPOWER
PLANNING (BIGGER, BOLDER AND MORE POINTLESS THAN
EVER)
- Manpower planning was very briefly and mildly
in vogue in the mid to late 1970s. Thereafter
the fashion was for a training market. - In 1999/2000 some members of the NSTF decided
that the best way to avoid skills shortages was
to establish an elaborate system that linked - Labour market forecasting (based on economic
modelling) - Employers views about future skill needs
- Funding of the VET system
- The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) was set up
to do this. Its mission was to engage in
manpower planning on a grand scale, and at a
high level of detail. - The aim is to match supply with demand.
26TOP DOWN, BOTTOM UP, AND SIDEWAYS
- Besides the LSC, there are many other players in
the new system - 9 Regional Development Agencies (RDAs)
- 30 Sector Skills Councils
- Sector Skills Development Agency (covers sectors
with no SSC for planning purposes) - And it operates at sectoral and regional levels
as well.
27WILL THEY ALL MEET IN THE MIDDLE?
- Treasury/DfES PSA targets
- National LSC plan and targets
- 47 LLSCs plans and targets
- 9 RDA Regional Economic Strategies (RES), which
then plan the skills component via 9 Regional
Skills Partnerships (RSPs). These include input
from the SSCs and the relevant LLSCs. - 30 SSCs, (plus SSDA) each producing over the
coming years its Sector Skills Agreement (SSA),
which project sectoral needs and to which public
funding of VET is meant to be tied. - Are all these plans liable to meet up in the
middle? Early indications suggest contests for
scarce resources talented people and the money
to train them.
28PROBLEMS WITH PLANNING
- Planning is only as good as the data being
entered. - UK employers have no history of, or capacity for
planning in detail within their own companies.
Projected employer views on skill demand are
guesses. - Most projections rely on modelling of changing
sectoral and occupational structures and sizes. - Industry data is weak because
- It does not take account of outsourcing
- Industry structures are changing rapidly
- Multi-nationals add complexity
- Occupational data is weak because
- Occupations are getting fuzzy
- Many skills are now cross-sectoral
- Measures job numbers not earnings
- Job/occupation titles now cover a wide range of
skill levels (e.g. manager)
29MORE PROBLEMS WITH PLANNING
- Generic and soft skills are not covered very well
by UK qualifications, so much skill demand in the
service sector cannot be specified and planned
for by recourse to qualifications. Within
publicly-funded VET, funding is normally
dependent on the delivery of whole, officially
approved qualifications. - Lead times are lengthy. Setting up new provision
and putting students through it at intermediate
and higher skill levels means a 3 to 4 year lag. - Economic volatility (in the whole economy and
sectors) can throw plans out very quickly.
30EVEN MORE PROBLEMS WITH PLANNING
- The matching model assumes
- 1. Simple, linear one-off career choice, which
research suggests this does not happen - 2. Supply and demand can be kept in balance
without a clash of interests. An appropriate
number of prospective students, not too few, not
too many, can be persuaded to opt for a given
course in a given locality. The examples of
media studies and hairdressing. A problem for
the LSC, which is supposed to be - Student-centred
- BUT
- Employer-led
- 3. Employers want supply to match demand. They
dont. They rationally want an excess of supply,
it drives down wages and it gives them choice
when recruiting.
31DEEPER TENSIONS
- In a voluntary system, how do you get employers
to play their part, and how do the various
players decide exactly what their part is? - It would be a mistake to treat the current
demands of employers and individuals for skills
as coterminous with the needs of the economy.it
cannot be assumed that these (employer and
individual demand) necessarily reflect the wider
needs of the economy for economic growth and
stability - National Skills Task Force, 1998 3.
- Whilst we accept that a greater proportion of
people with full vocational qualifications may
benefit the economy as a whole, this is not the
main concern of individual companies. - British Chamber of Commerce 1998
- Problem identified, but what to do about it?
32THE NEEDS OF EMPLOYERS EQUAL NEEDS OF EMPLOYMENT
- The UK is unusual, at least in a European
context, in choosing to define the needs of the
labour market solely in terms of the needs of
employers. - In other countries the norm is for social
partnership arrangements, and the active
involvement of worker representatives in the
management of the VET system, to ensure that such
needs are conceptualised in terms of the wider
needs of employment and employability rather than
the immediate skill requirements of employers
alone.
33VOLUNTARY BUT CLOSELY PLANNED - MATCHING SUPPLY
WITH DEMAND IS HARD
- Interests and needs of different players do not
coincide. - One persons demand is different from anothers
demand. - Employers are in competition for certain types of
talent. If one lot win, another lot lose (and
complain) - Individuals want different outcomes from
employers (e.g. broader qualifications) - The LSC and others are left to try and mediate.
34Squaring the Triangles
35Qualifications Demand Supply 2001
DD Highest Qualification Required (000s of jobs) SS Highest Qualification Held (000s of jobs)
Level 4 or Above Degree Non-Degree 7,122 4,220 2,903 7,359 4,774 2,585
Level 3 3.976 6,379
Level 2 3,878 5,302
Level 1 2,951 3,549
No Qualifications 6,464 2,881
36Percentages of Over-qualified
Under-qualified - 1986-2001
1986 1992 1997 2001
The Under-Qualified 20.5 16.5 19.8 17.6
The Over-Qualified 30.0 31.2 33.0 37.0
Level 4 plus Degree Non-Degree 27.9 30.2 32.1 25.3 29.7 28.4 25.8 31.6 29.8 28.0 33.9 33.9
Level 3 47.7 41.5 52.0 48.1
Level 2 42.4 42.7 40.8 50.0
Level 1 54.3 48.9 42.5 43.2
NB An under-qualified individual has a highest
qualification at a lower level than that
currently required to get the job he/she now
holds An over-qualified individual has a
qualification at a higher level than that
currently required to get the job he/she now
holds.
37PROBLEMS WITH DEMAND FOR SKILLS
- There has been a gradual dawning that, in part,
our relatively low levels of VET vis-à-vis other
developed nations may reflect the fact that
demand for skill in the UK economy is relatively
limited. - Finegold, Soskice and the Low Skills Equilibrium
- Mason and Low Skills Trajectories
- Significant parts of the economy appear locked in
to producing relatively low specification, lower
quality goods and services that do not require
high levels of skill to deliver them. - Hogarth and Wilson and the DTI study
- SKOPE and the Employers Perspectives Survey
- RESEARCH CONCLUSION higher product or service
specification/quality is positively associated
with the need for higher levels of skill. The
link is not always simple and direct, and may
impact on different parts of workforce with
varying force.
38PROBLEMS WITH SKILL USAGE
- Two main issues
- Gradually rising levels of over-qualification
- Slow (now stalled), and very patchy spread of
High Performance Work Organisation (HPWO), high
involvement work practices, etc. Work
organisation and job design is often
impoverished, produces many highly routines jobs
and limits the discretion, creativity and ability
to utilise skill of much of the workforce.
39SKILLS ALONE ARE NOT ENOUGH
- Realisation that although skills are important,
and supplying more of them is a prerequisite for
progress, - skills produce results in combination with other
factors. - Thus recent thinking on the UKs patchy record
on productivity now acknowledges that there are
other weaknesses that must be tackled - Poor record on RD
- Very poor record on investment in plant and
equipment over many decades - Low levels of innovation
- Poor public infrastructure (e.g. transport)
- The challenge covers the need to move to a
- new model of competitive advantage.
40THE PORTER REPORT
- Michael Porter and colleagues were commissioned
to report on the health of the UK economy. They
concluded - The UK currently faces a transition to a new
phase of economic development. The old approach
to economic development is reaching the limits of
its effectiveness, and government, companies and
other institutions need to rethink their policy
priorities..We find the competitiveness agenda
facing UK leaders in government and business
reflects the challenges of moving from a location
competing on relatively low costs of doing
business to a location competing on unique value
and innovation. - (Porter and Ketels, 2003 5)
41THE PIU WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
- The Prime Minister commissioned the Cabinet
Offices Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) to
undertake a follow-up to the NSTF. - Its aim was to address some of the fundamental
issues left - hanging by the NSTF.
- The PIUs inquiry reached conclusions that
changed the fundamental direction of VET policy.
It argued that - Weak demand for skill was as much a problem as
poor supply. - Besides possible market failure, there was also
systems failure underpinning a partial Low Skills
Equilibrium in the economy. - Skills are a derived demand derived from and
driven by business need. The key for policy was
to impact on business strategy - Workforce development needs to be addressed
- in the wider context of government and business
- strategies towards product strategy, innovation,
- market positioning, IT, human resources policies
- and so on.
42A DAWNING REALISATION THAT SKILLS ARE THE EASY
BIT..
- THE BAD NEWS IS up-skilling is the easy bit.
- If a government is willing to spend taxpayers
money on a large enough scale, a much more highly
qualified workforce is achievable, as the UK has
proved. - Deriving benefit from this is the hard part.
Ensuring that higher levels of skill are really
needed and get used to maximum productive effect
is the new challenge. One for which Anglo-Saxon
style public policy is poorly prepared.
43SKILLS CRISIS AS A RHETORICAL DEVICE IS
STARTING TO LOOK TIRED
- Skills shortages are modest and concentrated in
certain sectors and occupations - Skills gaps are mainly transitory
- Over, not under, qualification is becoming a
problem - Massive increases in skill supply have not
solved our problems with relatively low levels
of productivity. -
- Increasingly, the question for policy makers is
Skills in combination with what else, makes the
difference?
44SKILLS AND WHAT ELSE MAKE THE DIFFERENCE?
- Highly sophisticated and demanding customers (at
home overseas) with income levels that allow
them to purchase high spec, high value-added
goods and services. - High levels of RD (public and private) and
innovation - Investment in new technology, plant and
communications - Patient and knowledgeable capital
- Legal, social and cultural infrastructure that
encourage networking between firms - High levels of social cohesion and stability
- An efficient, responsive and adequately resourced
skills supply system in which ability and
achievement, rather than social background and
mode and place of study determine labour market
outcomes. - An open and efficient labour market
- High performance workplaces, competing on the
basis of quality, paying high wages and offering
as much job security as possible, within which
employee relations systems and practices
encourage partnership, high trust relationships
and skills development. - THIS SETS THE SCALE OF CHALLENGE FOR PUBLIC
POLICY
45FINAL THOUGHTS
- The foregoing does not mean we can neglect our
skills supply system, but it does mean that it is
now pointless to pretend that supplying more
skills will, of itself, solve our economic and
social problems. - Policy needs to embrace the supply, demand and
usage of skill if it is to make further progress.