Two thirds of Scottish businesses have recruited young people in the past year, while firms have called for better access to suitable candidates to help them invest.<\/p>\n
Of the companies that hired early careers talent in the past 12 months, 90% expect to recruit more over the next year, according to new research from Bank of Scotland. Even among Scottish businesses that did not recruit early careers talent in the past year, 75% said they would have done so if they had felt able to; the highest in the UK.<\/p>\n
When asked what factors would most increase their confidence to invest specifically in early careers talent, Scottish employers highlighted better access to suitable candidates and stronger external collaboration.<\/p>\n
Nearly two fifths (39%) cited greater certainty over government funding as a primary catalyst, followed by better access to suitable candidates (34%), stronger links with education providers (28%) and more relevant local training provision (27%). Nearly a fifth (17%) pointed to access to finance to manage upfront recruitment and training costs.<\/p>\n
This confidence extends to wider investment in skills, with 89% confident they can secure the funding needed to invest in training, apprenticeships or new hires over the next one to three years; the highest of any UK nation or region.<\/p>\n
On the types of skills firms need, customer service and relationship management (37%) was the most cited by Scottish companies, followed by sales and business development (30%) and specialist technical knowledge (29%).<\/p>\n
When it comes to addressing anticipated skills gaps, Scottish businesses are taking a practical approach with internal training and up-skilling of existing staff leading the responses at 54%.<\/p>\n
Martyn Kendrick, Scotland director at Bank of Scotland Commercial Banking, said: \u201cScotland\u2019s businesses clearly have an appetite to grow and invest in the next generation of talent and it\u2019s particularly encouraging that Scottish firms lead the UK in their confidence to secure funding for skills investment, while many more would recruit early careers talent if they felt able to.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat comes through strongly is that the willingness to invest is there and the bigger challenge is making sure businesses can find the people with the skills they need.<\/p>\n
\u201cBringing businesses, education and training providers closer together will be key to closing that gap, helping more young people into work and giving Scottish firms access to the talent they need to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The nation’s companies are among the most confident in hiring prospects across the UK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":278857,"featured_media":1895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120782,127684,127720],"coauthors":[137126],"class_list":["post-8261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-recruitment","category-skills","tag-featured-story","tag-scotland"],"yoast_head":"\n