Poor Little Manufacturers
by Sarah
Despite the common presumption that our labour market is threatened by increasing amounts of foreign workers entering the country and ’stealing’ our jobs, a recent CBI (Confederation of British Industry) Report suggests that the upper end of the labour market is struggling to meet demands. In their quarterly report, the CBI pointed out that there is a shortage of skilled labour in areas such as manufacturing, rather obviously, they pointed out that the shortage could be tackled by investment in training and retraining. Another suggestion made will please the intellectually inclined; a reduction of tuition fees of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects is hoped to encourage youngsters to enroll on these demanding and undersubscribed courses.
These are all well-intended ideas but what emerges from both the report and the initiatives are the huge demands placed on the employers themselves. Manufacturers are already reporting increased consumer demand, this is wonderful for the economy but not so wonderful for the small niche manufacturer who can’t find enough engineers to help run their plant. If employers can’t recruit enough staff it would understandably, be unwise for them to think they could take on an increased output and invest in something they could never run.
Potential recruitment problems will have some inevitable knock-on effects of the decision making processes of the employer. We see some of these consequences here at PJH Law with employers carrying out disciplinary procedures up to a certain point but not making the final dismissal decision as they know that they will not be able to find a suitable replacement for the lost labour. In addition, continually losing staff will indicate a lack of a retention policy for the remaining staff thus leading to the staff left wanting to leave the business too. All this, in a worst case scenario, will trap the employer in a nasty downward spiral. It has been suggested that employers can prevent losing staff if they ensure that they have suitable training and retraining systems in place so that the staff they do have are efficient and effective; for a large manufacturing employer this might not be too difficult to implement, however for the smaller firms out there it could be rather expensive to pay for the suggested suitable training of the small workforce that they employ.
On top of all these concerns and the suggested increases in spending, the CIB are also suggesting that manufacturers get out to schools and educational institutions and encourage the youth of today to take STEM subjects by demonstrating how skills learned from such courses will lead to a real-life career…as if they didn’t already have enough on their plates!
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