What's the

Citation

(1999), "What's the", Education + Training, Vol. 41 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.1999.00441dab.004

What's the

What's the "Full Monty" on skill shortages?

Keywords Competences, Qualifications, Skills shortages

Current estimates of the extent of Britain's skills gap may be false, because calculation methods fail to give the full picture.

Responding to the recommendations of the first report of the national skills taskforce, the Institute of Personnel and Development (IPD) urges the Government not to depend exclusively on formal qualifications as a measure of skill shortages. The IPD says that formal qualifications provide only a partial picture because so many workers acquire their skills informally.

Roy Harrison, IPD policy adviser, says: "Government strategies to deal with skill gaps must acknowledge that employers and their staff usually spend more time and money in on-the-job training and development than they do in formal training".

Mr Harrison also says that any national strategy for skill shortages should start with a national audit of the skill requirements of existing jobs in the economy. He continues: "The supply of skills needs to respond to skill demand if we are to avoid either investing in the wrong training and development or producing large number of frustrated people with excellent skills but no jobs".