Spec Finish

Skills FIS Training Lead, George Swann , discusses the sector skills shortage, especially as the number of EU workers may decline this summer. There are solutions though with the FIS BuildBack programme and use of the Career and Qualification Pathways. MIND THE (SKILLS) GAP! 18 www.thefis.org I AM not a big fan of the term ‘skills gap’. When people talk about it, do they mean the lack of workers or is it more about the competence of the people we have? In the case of the finishes and interiors sector, there is evidence that the two are directly related. To be clear, a skills gap forms when employers are unable to fill vacancies with people who have the required skills to do the job. A skills shortage is created when people are working without a valid, verifiable and recognised proof of competence. The size and structure of our workforce The number of employees in the finishes and interiors sector is huge – around 200,000. Using data from the 2019 CITB Construction Skills Network this equates to about 9% of the construction workforce. According to data from FIS, 65.8% of companies in the sector employ European labour and in January 2020, approximately 42% of the workforce was made up of immigrant labour. To stand still the sector’s annual recruitment rate for the next five years needs to be at least 3,000 per year. This reflects the inevitable churn as people leave, retire or pass away. Across the UK men retire on average at 67.4 years old and women at 63.6 years old. I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen many 67-year-olds putting up boards, careers in construction tend to be shorter. The immigration tap is off The points-based immigration system brings a new challenge. Before 1 January 2020 we had access to a vast labour pool through our membership of the EU and any shortfall in skilled workers had been met by tapping the expanding EU workforce. Under the points-based system, no trades in construction are deemed ‘shortage occupations’ and many of our trades; drylining, ceiling fixing, partitions installers etc., do not meet the current definition of ‘skilled occupations’. These two issues, combined with the fact around 70%of our workforce are not directly employed, means that the necessary 70 points needed to work in the UK are a pipedream for most trade roles, this tap is well and truly off. In real terms, this means we need to qualify more people within the UK, but this takes time and the numbers are challenging. If we just look at one trade, drylining, even if all the 25,000 EU workers that have supplemented this occupation remain in the UK through the settlement scheme, we will still be up against it. To make up the churn of around 1,500 workers we need to double domestic recruitment and training. If we lose just 5% of EU workers, our target for 2021 trebles and so it continues. None of this takes training time into account, or limited capacity because of continuing COVID constraints. The full extent of the problem is still not clear, there are balancing factors, but there is no doubt there is a problem looming! Skill levels within the existing workforce Another challenge that contributes to the skills gap and skills shortage is the competency of the existing workforce. (‘Competency’ is a word that leaps out of Dame Judith Hackitt’s, Building a Safer Future review.) Who is competent to do what and how do we measure it? The best way to identify an individual who is competent for any job is to check that they hold formal, nationally recognised qualifications. Now paper and cards don’t make people competent, but they do help to George Swann, FIS Skills and Training Lead

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