Polish Workers Still Filling UK Skills Gaps.

Posted on: 09.07.2010    10:56:15

With high levels of unemployment, the demand for skilled labour is not being satisfied by the local market and we believe skilled Polish Workers such as welders, carpenters, bench joiners and CNC operators are still coming in to pick up the slack.

How can this be?

Inadequate education, poor training and weak skill sets, fail to deliver the workers that industry requires and it will take a generation to correct those imbalances if investment was occurring today – which it isn’t.

Apparently research by Capita within the top 500 UK companies found that 70% of business leaders believe inadequate staff skills are the greatest threat. More than two-thirds admit that their under-trained workforce is struggling to cope with expanded job remits following waves of job cuts during the recession. More than a third (36%) lack confidence that their employees have the skills required to deliver the firm’s upturn strategy, and nearly half (46%) cast doubt on their internal ability to provide these skills.

The study also revealed that more than half (55%) claim that their firm is failing to deliver the necessary training for recovery. And workers are still struggling to catch up with the impact of the recession. More than two-thirds (67%) are concerned their employees are struggling to cope with expanded remits following job cuts.

Understandably firms have been either unwilling or failed to provide the right training through recessionary times and may well be forced to pay the bills by buying in skills when the upturn finally arrives.

The Polish plumber of folklore will be joined by other Polish workers with the skill sets so sadly missing in the UK but surely this is, in part, the reason for the economic union called the EU which encourages mobility of labour.

Author: Chris Slay

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