Job Vacancy Monitoring Programme Reports

Occupation Reports (2004): Trades

These reports investigate shortages in 16 trade occupations.

They provide an assessment of whether there is a genuine skill shortage of the occupation under review, an analysis of the demand and supply forces contributing to the shortage and a short-term outlook.

The occupations were selected on the basis that there was some evidence that they are in shortage. This evidence was largely drawn from an earlier Job Vacancy Monitoring Programme survey of employers. The chosen occupations represent a wide range of trades including construction, engineering, motor, food, boat building and furniture making.

Key findings:

• Shortages exist in each trade occupation surveyed
• Shortages are acute in some trade occupations, with vacancy fill rates below 30% in some areas
• The shortages are assessed to be genuine skill shortages, as opposed to recruitment difficulties, in all but one occupation surveyed
• On balance, the growth in supply through training and migration falls short of the loss of trades people through retirement and occupational wastage and the growth in demand through job creation
• The causes of trade shortages are varied and include a drop in young people entering the trades in the 1990s and low training rates at the "fully trade qualified' qualification levels
• These shortages are expected to persist, certainly in the short term.