Businesses Struggle To Find Skilled Staff

It will come as no surprise to many readers that the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) reports that over one third of small businesses find it difficult to recruit skilled staff. There is general agreement that training is the way forward but that many of the courses on offer are not relevant to the needs of the business. The FSB is calling on the government to recognise the problem and look to:

• encourage training providers to develop bespoke work-based training packages
• develop short training courses that respond to particular business needs.

Above all, training needs to be flexible and in the words of the FSB, courses need to be ‘bite sized and targeted at solving specific problems’.

Further statistics released as part of the Lloyds TSB Business in Britain survey suggest that the problem is greater still with 52% of British companies finding difficulty in recruiting skilled staff and 28% reporting problems in finding unskilled staff.