Employer Skills Survey 2015 : UK results

Abstract

series of UK-wide skills surveys run by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES).The survey gives us insight into the skills issues employers face and the action they are taking to address them, providing a unique skills perspective alongside other labour market information.There is no other business survey on this scale: our researchers conducted over 91,000 interviews with employers from Caithness to Cornwall, Tyrone to Tyneside.The wealth of data this provides allows us not only to track changes over time but also to delve down into geographical, industry-sector, and occupational detail.This year's survey points to continued growth in recruitment.This adds to other indicators of consumer and business confidence at the end of 2015, including the UK's relatively strong record in employment since 2010.But what ESS 2015 also shows is the other side of the coin -the dark side of this increase in recruitment is that a growing number of jobs are being left unfilled because companies can't find the right people with the right skills.An area of real concern is skill shortages faced by the construction sector, a hugely important sector that contributes nearly 90bn to the UK economy, over a million jobs, and is strategically important in its contribution to housing, infrastructure and initiatives to stimulate UK growth.The ESS findings show employers are struggling to fill one in three construction vacancies, up from one in four in 2013, because they can't find people with the right skills.This cautionary note is just one from a survey that probes far deeper into the "black box" of how employers respond to the skills challenges that they face, and hints at how these could contribute to the continuing unsolved puzzle of UK productivity.On this note, a fascinating area of the survey reports on the skills left unused by UK employers.One in three employers had at least one member of staff whose skills were underused.Beneath the headline picture the survey reveals variations, for example, 40 per cent of employers in the Hotel and Restaurants sector report having staff with unused skills compared to 20 per cent in Agriculture.Knowing that UK productivity has flatlined since 2008 at the same time as employers know of talent untapped in their workers is not easy to take in.ESS looks at the underuse of skills from a business perspective (complementing other data from workers) but this is an area where our understanding is developing and more work is needed to look at this troubling trend.