Advanced Manufacturing: Skills gap is a chasm for supply chain firms
THE growing skills gap remains one of the most serious challenges to growth of the Advanced Manufacturing supply chain, experts have said.
With a shortage of skilled labour, many firms are having to search abroad for the workers they need – a situation which may grow more complex as Britain leaves the Single Market.
The skills challenge emerged during a special debate organised by TheBusinessDesk.com, and held at the Manufacturing Technology Centre, Ansty Park.
The event – Advanced Manufacturing: Risk & Reward – was staged in association with Leamington law firm Wright Hassall and Birmingham accountants and business advisor, Moore Stephens and examined the challenges facing manufacturing SMEs working in both Coventry and Warwickshire, and the wider region.
Supplying the answers was an esteemed panel comprising: Rowan Crozier, CEO of Birmingham-based precision components firm Brandauer, Jason Aldridge, managing director of Coventry aerospace supplier Arrowsmith Engineering, Paul Markwick, Services Director, MTC, Pete Maguire, advanced manufacturing and engineering partner at Wright Hassall and Ross Northall, partner, Moore Stephens.
The panel said that while a greater focus on teaching STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) in schools was a positive step forward, this was a long-term solution to a problem currently occupying the thoughts of virtually every firm intent on growth.
The panel said that help was needed now for the Advanced Manufacturing sector if the industry was to sustain itself on a global stage.
Mr Aldridge said his business had recruited from Eastern Europe in the past and this had proved an efficient stop-gap. Many other firms in the area have followed suit.
However, the panel said there was now a growing concern that with Brexit, recruiting foreign labour may be more difficult, not least because some of the workers may opt to move elsewhere in Europe.
Fortunately none of the firms represented on the panel said they had ever been put off from pursuing new opportunities because of workforce restrictions.
