UK Manufacturers Planning To Boost Staff Numbers

Posted on: 19 Sep 2017

More than half of the manufacturing and engineering firms questioned as part of the annual MHA Manufacturing and Engineering Report 2017/18 plan to hire new staff in the coming year.

57 per cent of the businesses who took part in the survey said they intend to employ new staff in the next 12 months, a 10 per cent increase on last year. What’s more, 59 per cent stated that they intend to bring in apprentices in the next year, providing more opportunities.

The firms planning to hire may want to make use of engineering jobs recruitment services to ensure they get the strongest applicants for the positions they’re advertising, especially given that 75 per cent said they struggle to recruit people with the right skills for their business.

However, while many businesses are intending to bring in new staff, there are worries over skills shortages, with 22 per cent of those surveyed citing this as one of their biggest concerns.

One-fifth of companies also revealed that they have lost or are at risk of losing members of staff following the Brexit vote. In certain areas of the country, such as London and the south-east, this figure rises to 35 per cent, indicating that it’s a bigger problem for some businesses than others.

It isn’t only manufacturing where a looming skills shortage is expected to present a problem. Last month chief executive of Balfour Beatty Leo Quinn voiced his concerns about the construction industry when speaking to the Telegraph.

He said that, by 2020, the UK will need an additional one million workers “assuming we lose none of our current European employees post-Brexit”, he told the newspaper.