Skills shortage is a job that needs fixing
WITH official unemployment still standing at over 12% of the labour force, one might assume that employers have a large pool of workers on which to draw as they embark on the road to expansion.
That would be a mistake.
Even at this very early stage of recovery, employers are raising concerns about emerging skills shortages and we are not just talking about the rapidly expanding IT sector which has been engaged in a constant hunt for scarce talent since it put the so-called ‘dotcom bust’ behind it, a decade or more ago.
In recent days, the president of the Irish Hotels Federation, Stephen McNally, suggested that there are now 3,000 unfilled vacancies in the hotel and catering trade, while the president of the Society of Chartered Surveyors, Michael O’Connor, has also warned that firms in the construction sector will have trouble filling all the new jobs set to come on-stream as the building trade emerges from its deep slumber.
Time, surely, for some head scratching.
Did not the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, refer to 90,000 jobless people in the construction sector during his address to the Fine Gael Árd Fheis at the weekend?
Mr O’Connor predicted, on the back of research commissioned from Amarach Consulting, that 30,000 extra jobs will be created in construction by 2018, bringing total employment to 178,000, still but a fraction of the numbers employed at the height of the boom.
Mr O’Connor assumes that construction will still account for less then 8% of GDP by then, below the 10% to 12% considered to be normal.
If the economy continues to recover, building activity could rebound at a faster rate, once financing and planning obstructions are overcome.
According to construction sources, the number of unemployed building workers could be close to 70,000. Getting the right data is difficult as so many people work part time, or on an informal, ad hoc basis. They insist that there are real concerns about an emerging shortage of electricians and plasterers. The winding up of Fás, the national training agency, and the retirement of most experienced trainers at Fás has left a gap in the area of apprenticeship.
The Fás construction training unit has been effectively disbanded and the task of training provision has been left with 16 VECs.
The Construction Industry Federation and building unions have jointly called on Government to maintain the highly regarded national construction training centre near Tullamore, Co Offaly, but what is required is a new structure for the industry. One model worth following, sources suggest, is the UK’s Construction Industry Training Board.
According to Jimmy Healy, CIF spokesman, “our members are now raising concerns about a future skills shortage”.
The VECs can play a big role under the guidance of Solas, the new strategic labour body.
It is time to move now, given the role the building trade can play in absorbing the long-term unemployed, as well as people from the soon to be growing ranks of school leavers.
As a senior executive with the Dalata Hotel Group, whose stock market flotation plans were confirmed, last week, Stephen McNally, is well placed to discuss the issue of labour supply in the hospitality sector.
He accepts that, in the past, life in hotel and catering was tough for many, but he points out that conditions for employees have been transformed in the past couple of decades. The concern is that the sector may not have shaken off this image of low pay and long unsociable hours.
Stephen is upbeat about the future for the sector following the success of the Gathering Initiative and recovery in visitor numbers to over 13 million.
“Dublin is flying. Cork and Galway are rising at a reasonable level, while elsewhere there is slow recovery. Since 2011, more than 23,000 jobs, full-time and part time, have been created in the sector.”
He believes that the loss of the industry training body, Cert, disbanded some years ago, is still being felt. With Institutes of Technology focusing on older more qualified people, Stephen believes there must be much more attention paid to the provision of apprenticeships for early school leavers at age 17/18.
“We are looking for a co-ordinated plan and for greater collaboration between the education and training boards, VECs and ITs,” he says.
While a revival of Cert is not envisaged, Solas can play an important part in providing courses at Fetac levels 3 and 4 for teenagers. “VECs are more appropriate vehicles than ITs for picking people at an earlier stage. We must start now as it takes two to three years to develop apprentices. We also have to look after the managers.”
The IHF president commends the Government for measures such as the lower 9% VAT rate for hospitality firms, but believes that time is coming to tackle the issue of vacancies, currently at 3,000 including 1,200 to 1,500 full-time positions.
If nothing is done, this could be up to 5,000 to 6,000 in two to three years. If we had 500 training places, that would be a great start.
IT, of course, is where the skills shortages are being most severely felt.
According to Maureen Lynch, from the Cork office of recruitment firm, Hays Ireland, an effort must be made to educate parents on the opportunities available for their offspring in the sector.
IT firms must also do their bit in making the industry more attractive to females, many of whom find it difficult to combine work with family responsibilities in a business thatis highly deadline driven and centred around a culture of late ‘pizza’ night working.
Maureen points to the volunteer work of people such as Sophie Byrne of IT@Cork, a networking forum for IT people in Cork.
“We need to also start selling Ireland as a great location,” she adds, citing the example of a young Irish women working for Hays in Canada who was planning to return home, but was unaware that Hays has been actively recruiting in Cork. Many emigrants, it seems, are put off returning by some rather downbeat media coverage.
Speaking at the recent Future Jobs Forum organised by Silicon Republic, Richard Eardley, the MD of Hays Ireland, called on educators to develop technology training aimed at fostering peoples’ potential rather than targeting particular areas in demand right now. “Otherwise, we end up chasing our tail,” he says.
The Hays boss cites the Global Skills survey which has concluded that Ireland is one of four countries, along with Spain, Portugal and the US, with the worst skills mismatch among developed countries. This is a sobering thought.
In his view “we must look at both short-term solutions and long-term strategies.
“Ireland has done a first class job in attracting employers through FDI. We must adapt this model to target employees through ‘skills missions’ similar to trade missions. This involves telling the story about the Digital Hub, Silicon Docks.”
Our system of work permits needs to be overhauled along the lines of New Zealand, he adds, with permits being granted to individuals rather than to particular employers.
Longer term, “education needs to recognise its role as the provider of our skills base. The Institutes of Technology are perhaps more agile in this regard — the agile will flourish, with corporate backing. 66% of Swiss students pursue vocational education, including 43% of the top academic achievers.
“In Germany, you have well-developed apprenticeship schemes. Apprentices there spend 50% to 70% of their time in the workplace. They come out of the system job ready and business ready.
“There is a need for a culture change in business. It needs to recognise its role — it cannot just rely on the education sector.”
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