Skilled Workers Shortage Can Hamper Growth
Unless businesses, governments and trade associations work together to develop long-term strategies to alleviate talent shortages among skilled trades, future economic growth will suffer, warns workforce solutions company Manpower Inc.
Worldwide, skilled trades positions are the hardest to fill, according to Manpower’s recent global Talent Shortage Survey of 35,000 employers across 36 countries and territories.
In a new World of Work Insight Paper Titled: “Strategic Migration – a Short-Term Solution to the Skilled Trades Shortage,” Manpower warns that as the global economy recovers, it is necessary to implement strategic migration policies in order to create a mobile workforce and plug the gap of skilled workers.
The lack of skilled blue-collar workers could impede the progress of infrastructure projects and inhibit national growth – such as transportation in India and power in Brazil, for example.
It is a problem that national governments must address for the long-term to foster economic health and fuel business growth. In the meantime, increasing the mobility of these workers can help ease the talent shortage, it says.
“As the global recovery gathers pace, cultivating future talent and alleviating the shortage of skilled workers is becoming vital to ensure economic growth,” said Jeffery A. Joerres, Manpower Inc. chairman and CEO.
“With unemployment high around the world, migration is an emotive subject but strategic migration will be necessary to create a global workforce and alleviate the current shortage. Countries should be developing policies which facilitate positive migration to fuel economic growth through providing skilled workers where they are needed, rather than creating barriers to immigration.”
Shortages of skilled workers are acute in many of the world’s biggest economies, including the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Brazil, where employers ranked skilled trades as their number one or number two hiring challenge, according to Manpower’s 2010 Talent Shortage Survey.
Manpower Inc. released the survey findings Wednesday, August 25.
