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Hays report reveals UK’s pressing need to address skill-deficit or risk competitiveness
A new Hays report outlines which countries boast the strongest talent profiles, which are struggling with the biggest talent deficits, and where organisations can find the most cost-effective talent networks.
The report, ‘The Workforce of the Future: Navigating the Skills Disruption', examines five sectors - including technology, engineering, BFSI, manufacturing and life sciences - in over 30 countries.
Skills shortages has been negatively impacting organisations for years, leading to an inability to leverage key skills which results in stagnant productivity, missed opportunities for innovation, and hindered long-term growth. The report indicates that UK’s competitiveness could be negatively impacted by the lack of available skilled candidates.
To address the growing skills gap, organisations must understand the global supply and demand of skills and take proactive action to ensure a steady future pipeline of talent. Organisations who implement a global talent strategy will broaden their pool of skilled candidates, dramatically boosting their chances of finding the skills they need.
USA, China, India, and Germany, rank among the top five talent networks across all highlighted sectors. Brazil feature in the top five in the technology, engineering, and BFSI sectors, and Japan are among the top five for manufacturing and life sciences. This indicates that these countries have the largest supply of professionals available for jobs within the five identified industries.
New Zealand, Portugal, Canada, the UK, and Switzerland frequently appear in the top five for talent deficits, indicating that organisations in these countries may face significant challenges in finding the necessary talent.
Colombia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore are emerging as top talent networks across all five industries. These countries have the potential to support organisation’s long-term growth plans, positioning themselves as key talent producers of the future.
India, Romania, Mexico, and Hungary are among the most cost-effective talent networks. Organisations can expect to find the talent they need at a lower cost, but with similar experience levels, compared to countries where skills are at a premium due to ongoing skills shortages.
For organisations that are looking for robust talent profiles and consider; cost and experience, the most resilient locations for tech talent are India, Romania, Mexico, Hungary, and Malaysia.
In many countries, a large proportion of the workforces has over eight years of experience, with some exceeding 75%. This serves as an early warning sign: without a robust pipeline of emerging talent countries could become less competitive as their skilled workers age out of the labour market.
“Business leaders are facing many challenges when trying to find the talent needed to help their organisations thrive. Skills shortages, ageing populations, differing expectations from workers, the ever-evolving gig economy, and the emergence of skills-based hiring, are some of the trends adding toward a complex set of decisions for business leaders as they look to acquire talent”, says Nigel Kirkham, CEO of Enterprise Solutions at Hays.
“To ensure the UK can continue to compete on the global stage, it needs a steady supply of talent with the right skills. When organisations are able to operate at their full potential, it improves the economy, increases employment, and in turn, benefits everyone. Organisations must learn how they can find and utilise the right talent, for the right work, in the right location. Business leaders need to create a workforce planning strategy that considers not just the type of talent they need, but where they can source it from, the level of experience needed, and the cost to acquire.”
Contact
For more information contact: Jonathan Beasley, Global Senior Communications Manager, Hays T: +44 (0)77 1439 9501 E: jonathan.beasley@hays.com
About the report
An extensive global dataset has been used to compile the insights in this report. This data was collected in May 2024 from 31 countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States).
The data has been collated and aggregated from hundreds of thousands of third-party data sources including 1.2 billion merged and de-duplicated social profiles and millions of de-duplicated job board adverts. Advert data was live and backdated by three months, in line with the average offer time. All salary data was collected in local currencies. To make it comparable, this was converted to US Dollars using rates as of 16 May 2024.
About Hays
Hays plc (the "Group") is the world’s leading specialist in workforce solutions and recruitment, such as RPO and MSP. The Group is the expert at recruiting qualified, professional and skilled people worldwide, being the market leader in the UK, Germany and Australia and one of the market leaders in Continental Europe, Latin America and Asia. The Group operates across the private and public sectors, dealing in permanent positions, contract roles and temporary assignments. As at 30 June 2023, the Group employed over 13,000 staff operating from 252 offices in 33 countries. For the year ended 30 June 2023:
