The CEO of an Australian construction company said they were facing shortages of trades workers like truck drivers, fitters, mechanics and electricians, not highly educated professionals. A global survey also found skilled trades to be the hardest positions to fill worldwide. Several factors contribute to the shortage, including retiring older trades workers and technical training not meeting business needs. Strategic migration of skilled trades workers both within and across borders can help alleviate shortages in the short-term while longer-term solutions like improving technical training and promoting skilled trades careers are developed.
Creating construction apprenticeships for young people. There is need to create construction apprenticeship schemes for young people. There are too many NEETS and yet there is big opportunities for employment in the construction sector.
Connecting employers, further education and training providers.
CMI’s Learning Providing Conference in July 2016 affirmed that the skills landscape is going through significant change – which offers substantial opportunities to deliver employer-led training that can boost skills and performance.
This white paper captures the insights, ideas and perspectives on directions in further education and training shared by speakers at the conference.
20% off the job training employers and trainers guideThe Pathway Group
The Apprenticeship levy 20% off the Job Training for Apprenticeships
Off-the-job training is defined as learning which is undertaken outside of the normal day- to-day working environment and leads towards the achievement of an apprenticeship. This can include training that is delivered at the apprentice’s normal place of work but must not be delivered as part of their normal working duties. The off-the-job training must be directly relevant to the apprenticeship framework or standard.
Here are our Top 20 for meeting the off the job training requirement for Apprentices
Creating construction apprenticeships for young people. There is need to create construction apprenticeship schemes for young people. There are too many NEETS and yet there is big opportunities for employment in the construction sector.
Connecting employers, further education and training providers.
CMI’s Learning Providing Conference in July 2016 affirmed that the skills landscape is going through significant change – which offers substantial opportunities to deliver employer-led training that can boost skills and performance.
This white paper captures the insights, ideas and perspectives on directions in further education and training shared by speakers at the conference.
20% off the job training employers and trainers guideThe Pathway Group
The Apprenticeship levy 20% off the Job Training for Apprenticeships
Off-the-job training is defined as learning which is undertaken outside of the normal day- to-day working environment and leads towards the achievement of an apprenticeship. This can include training that is delivered at the apprentice’s normal place of work but must not be delivered as part of their normal working duties. The off-the-job training must be directly relevant to the apprenticeship framework or standard.
Here are our Top 20 for meeting the off the job training requirement for Apprentices
Today, Asia-Pacific—and in particular the fast-emerging
nations in its midst—is once again taking centrestage in
the worldwide marketplace. This is the Asian century, and the region’s organisations—
as well as the talented individuals that lead them—
are going to need to adapt, fast.
Birmingham Business Magazine article on Safaraz Ali
Safaraz (Saf) Ali is a social entrepreneur and started his journey in 2000 by founding Pathway Group: an organisation dedicated to changing lives through skills and work.
As the CEO of Pathway, Safaraz is committed to career development and progression through continual learning, reflected in all aspects of his ethos to business. Working within the Skills arena and the welfare sector, the group provides career opportunities through traineeships, employability, and apprenticeships programmes.
In recognition of his position within the business and social entrepreneurial community, Safaraz has been invited to not only judge for the Future Leaders Programme for Ivy House plus several other prestigious awards, he is:
• Head Judge for the Birmingham Awards
• Judge for the UK Government's National Apprenticeship Awards
• Judge for the Great British Entrepreneur Awards
• Judge for Nachural - Signature Awards and the Summer Ball & Awards Entrepreneurship Awards.
Safaraz is the Founder of The BAME Apprenticeship Awards and the BAME Apprentice Network setup to promote ethnic diversity within apprenticeships. They also own and manage the Festival of Apprenticeships brand, the Business Book Awards and the Pathway2Grow operations.
Safaraz is active and a Social CEO and operates several social media channels himself such as:
• https://twitter.com/SafarazAli
• linkedin.com/in/safaraz/
• https://www.facebook.com/SafarazAli/
Accelerating Change for Social Inclusion project. Call for Proven Innovations addressed to Youth Unemployed. Definition of the key elements of the social problem and the solutions.
Value co creation in entrepreneurship education - case aalto universityOlli-Pekka Mutanen
Experiences from teaching: Presenting a value co-creation model comprising students, firms and university in education.
Case: Growth Entrepreneurship Education in Aalto University.
How To Prepare For A Post-Coronavirus Job MarketBernard Marr
Whether the economic impact of the coronavirus caused you to be furloughed or limited your income, you might wonder what you can do now to prepare for a post-coronavirus job market. Global pandemic aside and regardless of a recession, it’s always a good idea to build resiliency into your career to safeguard yourself when faced with disruptions in the job market. Here are ways you can prepare for a post-coronavirus market.
Today, Asia-Pacific—and in particular the fast-emerging
nations in its midst—is once again taking centrestage in
the worldwide marketplace. This is the Asian century, and the region’s organisations—
as well as the talented individuals that lead them—
are going to need to adapt, fast.
Birmingham Business Magazine article on Safaraz Ali
Safaraz (Saf) Ali is a social entrepreneur and started his journey in 2000 by founding Pathway Group: an organisation dedicated to changing lives through skills and work.
As the CEO of Pathway, Safaraz is committed to career development and progression through continual learning, reflected in all aspects of his ethos to business. Working within the Skills arena and the welfare sector, the group provides career opportunities through traineeships, employability, and apprenticeships programmes.
In recognition of his position within the business and social entrepreneurial community, Safaraz has been invited to not only judge for the Future Leaders Programme for Ivy House plus several other prestigious awards, he is:
• Head Judge for the Birmingham Awards
• Judge for the UK Government's National Apprenticeship Awards
• Judge for the Great British Entrepreneur Awards
• Judge for Nachural - Signature Awards and the Summer Ball & Awards Entrepreneurship Awards.
Safaraz is the Founder of The BAME Apprenticeship Awards and the BAME Apprentice Network setup to promote ethnic diversity within apprenticeships. They also own and manage the Festival of Apprenticeships brand, the Business Book Awards and the Pathway2Grow operations.
Safaraz is active and a Social CEO and operates several social media channels himself such as:
• https://twitter.com/SafarazAli
• linkedin.com/in/safaraz/
• https://www.facebook.com/SafarazAli/
Accelerating Change for Social Inclusion project. Call for Proven Innovations addressed to Youth Unemployed. Definition of the key elements of the social problem and the solutions.
Value co creation in entrepreneurship education - case aalto universityOlli-Pekka Mutanen
Experiences from teaching: Presenting a value co-creation model comprising students, firms and university in education.
Case: Growth Entrepreneurship Education in Aalto University.
How To Prepare For A Post-Coronavirus Job MarketBernard Marr
Whether the economic impact of the coronavirus caused you to be furloughed or limited your income, you might wonder what you can do now to prepare for a post-coronavirus job market. Global pandemic aside and regardless of a recession, it’s always a good idea to build resiliency into your career to safeguard yourself when faced with disruptions in the job market. Here are ways you can prepare for a post-coronavirus market.
Talent has gone global. It can be found in every corner of the planet. Employers everywhere are competing for it. They realise that finding the right people is critical to their competitive advantage. Resourcing experts like BPS World are pushing into new frontiers in trusted partnership with their clients, they are conquering Planet Talent. To dominate Planet Talent and win the global recruitment race, BPS World has complied ten top tips.
If Asia's organisations are going to access enough 'value-creating' talent to capture the opportunities that are now in view, they're going to need to embrace better, smarter talent management and attraction strategies. They will need to embrace flexibility in their workforces in order to:
Fill critical skill gaps in a timely and efficient way
Keep talent engaged and retained, even across borders
Porous Organisations
Here is our latest 2030 foresight.
This time we focus on the challenges for the future of work. Increasing competition for talent forces organisations to open their doors to a growing number of independent workers. This makes it difficult to maintain corporate knowledge and becomes a challenge for business big and small. In a highly volatile and increasingly complex landscape, many must learn how to manage a seamless flow of knowledge and ideas so they can adapt to changing customer demands, ensure capabilities are maintained and keep the doors to innovation open. Looking ahead, it seems that only the wealthiest and most attractive organisations (in the main technology companies) will be able to retain the loyalty of their employees. For everyone else, building and preserving corporate know-how within increasingly porous organisational boundaries will become a priority. As ever your thoughts and provocations are very welcome.
To access via website https://www.futureagenda.org/foresights/porous-organisations/
Future of Work
The future of work is increasingly uncertain. What is clear is that we are in the midst of a major transformation driven by multiple drivers of change. How individuals, companies, cities and governments respond to the upcoming shifts will be pivotal for future economic and social wellbeing, but this is far from straightforward. Some major decisions lie ahead.
Ahead of speeches in London, Kuala Lumpur and several subsequent expert discussions, this is a point of view on how, where and why the future of work is in flux.
It explores three key drivers of change as leaders around the world view it – shifting demographics, technology innovation and the organisational response. In addition, we have highlighted several areas where new policy decisions need to be made.
The full text of the talk and more details are available on https://www.futureagenda.org/news/future-of-work
An accompanying infographic is also on
https://www.futureagenda.org/news/future-of-work1
De Hays Global Skills Index is een gedetailleerd rapport dat de uitdagingen op de wereldwijde arbeidsmarkt in kaart brengt. De knelpunten en mismatches van 31 lokale arbeidsmarkten worden blootgelegd en de aanbevelingen in het rapport dienen als advies voor overheden, organisaties, onderwijsinstellingen en overige stakeholders.
The Hays Global Skills Index is the only comprehensive overview of the professional global labour market and examines the challenges faced by organisations as they search for the most sought-after skills. Our 2015 edition provides an analysis of the employment markets and economic status of countries, featuring insights from Hays experts across the globe.
White Paper: Addressing Worker Shortages in the Skilled TradesTulsa Welding School
The popularity of America’s skilled trade careers has been in steady decline for the past few generations, and industries that have relied on American workers across the country are now feeling the effects of that. While the shortage puts employers at a disadvantage, it also creates huge opportunities for newcomers to the industry. - See more at: http://www.weldingschool.com/blog/how-to/white-paper-addressing-worker-shortages-in-the-skilled-trades/
The Hays Global Skills Index is the only comprehensive overview of the professional global labour market and examines the challenges faced by organisations as they search for the most sought-after skills. Our latest edition provides an analysis of the employment markets and economic status of 33 countries, featuring insights from Hays experts across the globe.
1. Not long ago, the chief executive of Leighton Holdings,
Australia’s biggest project development and
contracting group, relayed an anecdote about the
mismatches that exist between education and training on
the one hand, and employment opportunities on the other.
Speaking about a project in Mongolia, the CEO, Wallace
King, acknowledged that his company was facing worker
shortages, but said the problem wasn’t a lack of highly
educated talent. Instead, the shortages were of truck
drivers, fitters, mechanics and electricians. “We don’t, in
many cases, need rocket scientists,” said King, speaking
at the 2010 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“We need people on the ground to do day-to-day things.”1
It is a complaint that resonates. Worldwide, skilled trades
are the hardest positions to fill, according to Manpower’s
2010 Talent Shortage Survey. This category covers a broad
range of job titles that require specialized skills, traditionally
learned over a period of time as an apprentice. Examples of
skilled trades jobs include butchers, electricians, carpenters,
cabinet makers, masons/bricklayers, plumbers and welders.
Employers in six of the world’s 10 biggest economies
ranked skilled trades as their No. 1 or No. 2 hiring challenge
(see chart on page 2). In these countries and others, the
lack of skilled blue-collar workers can impede the progress
of infrastructure projects and jeopardize national growth—
think transportation in India and power in Brazil, to name
just two examples. It’s a problem that countries must
address for the long term to foster economic health and fuel
business. In the meantime, increasing the mobility of these
workers can help ease the shortage.
The shortage of skilled trades workers stems from several
problems, including the retirement of older blue-collar
workers without adequate replacements, technical training
that isn’t meeting businesses’ needs, and the higher status
accorded knowledge work over more manual forms of
labor among those beginning their careers.
In This Article
Unlike other positions facing a talent shortage, skilled trades•
work is geographically fixed and cannot be relocated or
offshored, leaving employers with a critical talent issue that
will only get worse as more experienced workers retire without
adequate replacements.
Strategic migration from within and outside national borders•
brings the necessary workers to the work, alleviating the
immediate pressure of the talent shortage and allowing
stakeholders the time and opportunity to work on long-term
solutions to the talent mismatch.
Addressing the issues of international certifications and•
immigration policies will aid organizations by easing the
current talent mismatch. Meanwhile, aligning technical training
more closely with business needs and promoting positive
attitudes toward the skilled trades will lay the foundation for
more lasting and permanent solutions.
More articles like this can be found in Manpower’s
Research Center at www.manpower.com/researchcenter
Strategic Migration—A Short-Term
Solution to the Skilled Trades Shortage
Welders, electricians and other skilled tradespeople are hard to find
when and where they are needed. Their work can’t be offshored,
but they can be onshored.
World of Work Insight A u g u s t 2 0 1 0
2. It is clear from surveys that the next generation does
not see itself working as CNC operators, plumbers or
electricians. Fewer than one in three 15-year-olds in
Germany or the Czech Republic see themselves in a
high-skilled blue-collar job by the age of 30.2
And that is
the high end of the spectrum. In other developed countries,
interest in the skilled trades is even lower. Fewer than 12
percent of Italian teenagers, 10 percent of Americans and
eight percent of Japanese see themselves taking that
career path, according to a survey by the Organisation of
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The younger generations’ lack of enthusiasm for the
skilled trades suggests the shortages will worsen. That
means employers, governments and trade groups will
need to get creative in order to develop a pipeline of
skilled trades workers to keep operations humming.
Worker Mobility
Skilled blue-collar work resists one of the trends of
modern economies: sending work offshore. By and large,
it is place-based work. Still, if the solution does not lie
in the mobility of the actual work, it does lie—at least in
part—in the mobility of workers.
Some business and government leaders are already
using mobility—the concept of strategic migration—to
get the right skills in the right place at the right time. The
easiest application of strategic migration, of course, is
to find skilled workers within one’s own country who are
willing to relocate for a job. For instance, in recent years,
Robertson Barracks, a military base in the Northern
Territory of Australia, has been bringing in mechanics
and technicians from other parts of the country to do
repair and maintenance work on some of its heavy
vehicles. The workers have come hundreds and in some
cases thousands of miles, from cities like Brisbane and
Adelaide, to work on a contract basis, usually for less
than two months.
When the right skills cannot be found within a country’s
borders, strategic migration can involve recruiting
from elsewhere. For instance, some U.S. shipbuilding
companies—located in towns and cities where the
base of skilled labor is retiring or has left—have brought
in experienced shipyard workers from countries like
Mexico and Croatia. Erie Shipbuilding LLC in Ohio is
among those that have done so, gaining access to H2B
temporary work visas after proving they could not hire
the necessary talent locally.3
Nowhere does the concept of cross-border recruitment
have greater relevance than in Europe. Take Luxembourg
for example, where nearly half of the nation’s workforce
of 360,000 people commutes from France, Germany
and Belgium.4
Notably, skilled trades were the No. 1
area of shortage in 10 of the 17 European countries
that Manpower surveyed in 2010.* The legal/legislative
system, moreover, supports the movement of workers.
Although there are exceptions, a skilled laborer in one
European country usually doesn’t need a specialized
work permit to take a job in another European country.
This allows hundreds of skilled butchers from countries
like Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Portugal to flow
into Norway each summer and fall, the peak season in
Norway’s meat processing industry.
The liberal migration agreements in the European
Union also allowed a French metal-parts manufacturer
to work with Manpower to recruit 16 welders from
Poland for a six-month project, filling a critical skills
need. (The language gap between the Polish-speaking
workers and French managers presented some initial
challenges, but those proved manageable with the help
of a translator.) The arrangement worked well for the
company, which has continued to hire welders from
Poland. And it worked for the welders, who are finding
greater opportunity in France and earning far more than
they would at home.
* Employers in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium, France,
Hungary, Italy, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland all ranked skilled trades as
their hardest jobs to fill in 2010.
2 World of Work Insight 08.10
Skilled Trades Shortages Afflict Eight
of the 10 Largest Economies
GDP
Rank
Country
Where Skilled
Trades Rank Among
Hiring Challenges
1 United States 1
2 Japan s
3 China 6
4 Germany 1
5 France 1
6 U.K. s
7 Italy 1
8 Brazil 2
9 Spain 5
10 Canada 1
s Indicates skilled trades weren’t among employers’ top
10 most-difficult-to-fill positions.
Sources: International Monetary Fund (for GDP figures,
2009), Manpower Inc. (for ranking of hiring challenges,
2010 Manpower Talent Shortage Survey).
3. World of Work Insight 08.10 3
Long-Term Approaches
Strategic migration is a practical answer to talent
mismatches today. Without it, there would simply be no
near-term way to alleviate shortages of skilled blue-collar
workers. But other approaches may also be valuable,
especially in the long term, in increasing the supply of
workers with the right skills or in enhancing their mobility.
Here are four areas where employers and governments
should look to innovate.
Promote positive attitudes toward skilled
trades work
One of the imperatives for the stakeholders who
rely on skilled labor is to find ways to emphasize
the appeal of the work. At a basic level, this means
promoting the career and compensation potential.
Governments, businesses and trade group leaders
must take steps to reach students early in their
education. Similarly, they must impress on older
students (and parents) that there are potentially
lucrative alternatives to traditional four-year university
degrees—that they can start at $75,000 (€58,000) a
year as plumbers (to take just one example), with the
possibility of owning a business and having three or
four employees within a few years.
Likewise, some of the more harmful myths about
skilled trades work need to be debunked. The view
that skilled trades work is for people who do not
excel academically, that the jobs are noisy and dirty,
that they are too hard for most women, etc. must be
corrected. Employers, trade groups and educators
must partner to create a societal mindshift that brings
honor back to the skilled trades.
Align technical training with business needs
Even students who come through technical schools
sometimes aren’t well-prepared for the workplace.
Business and trade associations must work more
closely with technical educators to ensure that the
classroom regimen is aligned with real-world needs
so that individuals develop the relevant skills and can
immediately contribute to the workforce. Similarly,
governments must have a clearer and more global
view of where current demand is and where it will be
in the future. Only then can they advise educators
about what skills will be needed to meet those global
business demands so that students can prepare
their career paths in anticipation of business’
workforce needs.
Recently, a 2009 OECD report on vocational and
educational training attributed the often unsatisfactory
student preparation to the difficulty of accurately
forecasting the skills that will be in demand, and to the
large number of older faculty members who don’t have
recent workplace experience.5
To improve the alignment between technical schools
and industry, the OECD report recommends technical
instructors hold part-time positions in industry, and
employers and skilled trades associations engage in
curriculum development. Apprenticeships (usually part
of any skilled trades worker’s education) should be a
standard part of the technical school experience. It
also suggests that the costs of a technical education
be shared among governments, employers and
students based on the benefits obtained by each—
recommendations Manpower supports.
In addition, students should develop both specific
technical skills and transferable “soft” skills, such as
teamwork, communication and problem solving. Equally
important are the attitudes that people bring to their
work. For example, outgoing and empathetic people
are a natural fit for customer-facing roles. Likewise,
intellectual curiosity is essential to the problem-solving
skills that employers really value. Individuals must also
embrace life-long learning and be encouraged and
supported by their employers, skilled trades associations
and governments to continuously develop and upgrade
their skills. This will not only improve their long-term
employability, but it will also help them transfer their skills
to new, emerging industries, such as renewable energy,
where no such supply of workers exists.
Finally, to truly align training with market needs,
businesses and governments need an accurate
forecasting system that takes into account the relevant
domestic, regional and global variables in order to
match supply to future skill demands. Employers,
skilled trades associations, governments and
educators should partner in this effort, making sure to
acknowledge the velocity of change and the impact of
technology on particular job categories.
Employers, trade groups and
educators must partner to create a
societal mindshift that brings honor
back to the skilled trades.