Businesses most worried in world by skills shortages

By NZPA

Friday 29th June 2007

Businesses in this country are now the most worried in the world about skills shortages, a new survey shows.

In its latest international business report, Grant Thornton International said 60% of the New Zealand businesses surveyed put skills shortages at the top of their list of expansion constraints.

That was up from 38% a year earlier and just ahead of two other southern hemisphere nations, Australia with 59% and South Africa with 58%.

Grant Thornton, an organisation of independently owned and managed accounting and consulting firms, surveyed 7200 owners of medium sized businesses in 32 countries, during September and October 2006. In New Zealand, 150 businesses were surveyed.

New Zealand spokesman Peter Sherwin said red tape or regulation normally had the highest rating in this country.

That concern, while still high, seemed to have stabilised at the same time as the skilled worker shortage escalated, he said.

Despite that, New Zealand was still in the top group when it came to worrying about red tape, with the table headed by Brazil, Russia, Poland and Greece.

Most commentators pointed the finger at the rising New Zealand dollar and interest rates as being a major factor in manufacturing businesses moving operations overseas, Sherwin said.

Those elements had probably been compounded by the fact that New Zealand's migrant flows had not always had the desired worker quality.

"A continuation of this will cause further problems in our economy and we may well see more businesses leave New Zealand to solve their skilled worker shortages or exchange rate problems," he said.

"We need a more balanced economy and we won't get that with a lack of truly skilled workers."

While New Zealand had migrant flows, the skills of those coming in were often not in appropriate areas, MSherwin said.

Nor were the skills at the same level of those that northern hemisphere countries were gaining from their influx of migrants.

Among the survey's findings was that in three Asian countries, Japan, Thailand and China, the most significant concerns were shortages of orders and lack of demand.

Comments from our readers

No comments yet