Communication Skills

According to a recent article in People Management, employers are having to turn to migrant workers to fill skills gaps. This is apparently becoming more of an issue as the economy recovers with certain vacancies being hard to fill. Out of the 600 employers who completed the CIPD/KPMG Labour Market Outlook survey, almost half said they had vacancies which were hard to fill, particularly in IT, accountancy; finance and engineering.



The proposed introduction of a 'migration cap' by the government is worrying a number of employers as this could impact considerably on their ability to recover from the economic downturn. Even though the number of graduates struggling to find work is on the increase, many employers are still finding it difficult to fill skilled vacancies.

If employers are unable to fill vacancies with migrant workers, Vince Cable, Business Secretary, believes that they may be forced to move some of their operations overseas. According to Cable, any immigration cap that is introduced needs to be flexible enough to, 'meet companies’ skills requirements and the economy’s growth needs.'

If the UK wants to address these skills shortages then something has got to be done to ensure that people are coming out of universities and colleges with the skills that are needed. This is not a new problem, yet not enough seems to has been done to ensure that businesses and the education sector are working collaboratively.

Should UK businesses be putting more pressure on the government to review immigration policies?