Car Industry Is Suffering A Major Labour Shortage
Monday, 15. February 2016
When I was out with my mates on a Friday night when I was in my twenties, our topics of conversation didn’t include things like the economy, immigrant crisis (although with the surge of immigrants from India and Pakistan at the time maybe it should have been), the weather or the price of a loaf of bread.
As none of us was particularly passionate about football it meant that the whole of the evening was taken up discussing women, cars and more cars. We were preoccupied with radial tyres, straight through exhaust systems and go faster stripes but the new generation of car drivers struggle to understand the concept of checking oil levels and tyre pressures, more interested in the number of watts that the stereo system kicks out and whether the car has heated seats.
There is still a passion for driving cars but not for the way cars are made and run, hence the reason why I believe we have a serious skills deficit in this country. We know that there is a lack of doctors and nurses and some joke about the number of plumbers, electricians and carpenters that have come to the UK from Poland, because we have a lack of qualified specialists in the UK.
But I wasn’t aware that we had a similar problem in the car industry. It seems that manufacturers are having to look abroad for people to work in engineering and on the factory floor because we have a severe skills shortage. I was as surprised to read that it doesn’t stop there.
We even have a severe shortage of sales staff to work in dealership showrooms. Andy Palmer, CEO of Aston Martin who started working with the company as an apprentice, said that the problem spreads wider than the manufacturers.
The problem exists within the manufacturers of hi-tech parts that fit into the cars, they are also having to search abroad for labour or have the parts made abroad and import them. Part of the problem is the growth of the industry which is suffering from its own success.
Whilst the industry continues to grow faster than most other industries, with not enough people to fill the vacancies, there will continue to be a need to bring in labour from abroad, something that this Government seems to be fighting against. The same problem exists in my industry, that of brokers.
When I attend events that are attended mainly by finance brokers it is clear that our industry doesn’t encourage women to join the industry and with an average age closer to 60 than 20 there are few youngsters coming into the industry. This is all very worrying. By Graham Hill
