Skilled Germans plug UK jobs gap
28 September 2005
By Clare Matheson
BBC News business reporter
One UK company has had to follow the
example of 1980s TV show Auf Wiedersehen Pet in an effort to
tackle the country's skilled worker shortage - but in reverse.
Rather than UK workers heading to Germany, German
staff are coming to Britain to plug a widening engineering jobs gulf
at Thames Water.
After completing an apprenticeship with Thames'
parent company, RWE electricians Uwe Strack, 26, and Alex Schiffer,
23, packed their bags and headed to the UK.
Thames Water says the pair were badly needed.
"In the UK we are facing a serious shortage of
young people opting for a career in engineering-related
professions," Thames Water human resources director Martha Desmond
says.
"The situation is particularly serious for us in
London and the Thames Valley where a logjam of major infrastructure
projects - such as Terminal Five, the new Wembley Stadium and our
own work to modernise Victorian water main and sewer networks -
means that engineering skills are in high demand."
Jobs shortage
Luckily the firm is owned by a German group - and
so Thames is able to take advantage of a mounting number of
qualified workers there who are finding it hard to get jobs.
"As we're owned by RWE we have a huge resource,
and we are taking some of those apprentices on over here."
RWE exchange co-ordinator Helen Metz adds:
"Because we have a huge surplus of apprentices in Germany, why not
make use of the apprentices we already have."
And the move is good for Uwe and Alex too - they
will return home with more to offer to the difficult German
employment market, where five million people are unemployed.
"The job situation in Germany is not very good.
Because of my experience, it will improve my CV, and employers are
always searching for flexible people," Alex says.
No quick fix
hile the organisation backs the government's
Apprentice Scheme, it does warn that there is no quick fix to the
UK's problems.
The scheme, launched last year, is a five-year
plan that aims to put vocational training firmly back on the agenda.
However, it will take time to feed through to the UK's workforce -
and businesses cannot wait that long.
IoD figures show about 25,000 16-year-olds leave
school each year with no qualifications, and those that do get
vocational educations are trained by poor providers. As a result,
135,000 vacancies were left unfilled last year
IoD director Martin Templeman warned the shortage
was causing serious damage to the UK economy.
Meanwhile, the annual Pertemps Employment Trends
survey from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) found about
20% of companies had hired staff from abroad over the last year.
Two-thirds of firms are still in need of skilled,
professional or managerial workers, "particularly in the energy and
water, construction, banking, finance and professional services
sectors."
And while 98% of firms need to give their staff
specific training, publicly funded training is failing to satisfy
those needs, the CBI says.
Targets 'misplaced'
The problem is being compounded by more
undergraduates turning to the arts rather than being encouraged into
science and technology.
CBI analysis of government figures shows the
number of 16 to 18-year-olds taking A-Level physics more than halved
between 1984 and 2004, while chemistry declined by a third.
While the CBI welcomes the skills and abilities of
migrant workers, it warns such measures will not provide a long time
solution to the UK's problem.
"In the long term we can't rely on other
countries. The priority for government must be to ensure that young
people leaving school are equipped with the right basic skills and
that we have a sufficient number of science and engineering
graduates," Susan Anderson director of human resources policy says.
"The government targets of getting 50% of school
leavers into university is totally misplaced. In Germany, just 20%
go to university while others do vocational training.
"Companies have no option. They have to get the
best people they can and they can only get them from abroad.
"For example, railway firms are now taking on
engineers from India. We built the railways over there, yet we are
now having to bring people over here to work on our networks. It's a
crazy situation," he says.
But it could soon be a case of Germany calling at
Thames Water once again - the group still has to find 70 recruits to
fill key technical posts that remain unstaffed.
"If the pilot programme with Alex and Uwe proves
successful, we will certainly be looking for others to follow in
their footsteps, especially as the recent slowdown in the German
economy has contributed to a surplus of trained apprentices there,"
Ms Desmond says.
"The scale and urgency of the programme we are
implementing means we have to find immediate solutions to the skills
gap here in the UK.";
From BBC news
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