Skills Shortages: Concepts, Measurement and Policy Responses

Initial Vocational Training from a Company Perspective: a Comparison of British and German In-House Training Cultures

“…Steedman 1993); this feeds into a situation of what is referred to as a 'low skills equilibrium' in terms of both providers and consumers on the training market (Finegold and Soskice 1988;Page and Hillage 2006;Winch and Clarke 2003; to compare the situation with other commonwealth countries like Australia cf. Shah and Burke 2005).…”

Skills and the role of HRM: towards a research agenda for the Asia Pacific region

“…Trendle () maintains that skill and labour shortages have no universally agreed upon definitions, although the terms are sometimes used to refer to a shortfall in the number of individuals in the labour force, or to a possible mismatch between workers and jobs in the economy. Shah and Burke (, 44) propose that ‘the concept of a skills shortage has different meanings to different people’ and ‘the lack of a common understanding of the concept often obscures analyses of problems, their causes and possible solutions’. The OECD () uses the term labour shortage, whereas in Australia the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR , 39) describes skill shortages as: ‘situations where employers are unable to fill or have considerable difficulty filling vacancies for an occupation at current levels of remuneration and conditions of employment and reasonably accessible locations’.…”

Rethinking How Establishment Skills Surveys Can More Effectively Identify Workforce Skills Gaps

“…Several employer surveys show that transitional phases associated with the beginning of the employee-employer relationship or lack of knowledge of firm-specific skills that require training imparted in the induction process are sources of skills gaps amongst employees Education Analytical Services 2010). Evidence has also been found of a positive relationship between skills shortages and skills gaps resulting from substitution behavior by employers that face skills shortages hiring staff which require further training or experience to meet the firm's skills needs (Shah and Burke 2003;Department of Education 2010;Sutherland 2010). Such substitution behavior provides a plausible reason why new employees can face skills gaps.…”

“…Underpinning this view is a belief that the pricing mechanism, exercised through expected wage returns and premia that motivate individual investment in particular types of skills and the ability of firms to increase extrinsic pay to obtain particular skills, leads to allocative efficiency within labor markets. However, persistent skills shortages over the last decade reported in several countries that began instituting establishment skills surveys in the early 2000s challenge the assumption that skill deficiencies are short lived and the effectiveness of the pricing mechanism in reducing the occurrence of labor market skills shortages (Shah and Burke 2003;Paterson, Visser et al 2008;Education Analytical Services 2010;Shury, Winterbotham et al 2010). …”

“…Similarly, the definition suggested by previous surveys for the concept of a skills gap lacks conceptual clarity. Two distinct definitions are advanced in previous surveys: a situation in which employers perceive current employees to be less than fully proficient for their current jobs or a gap between the skills of current employees and the skills needed to meet business objectives (Shah and Burke 2003;Paterson, Visser et al 2008; Education Analytical Services 2010; Shury, Winterbotham et al 2010). Since skills shortages apply to the external labor market while skills gaps apply internally to the firm, these survey approaches imply the two concepts of a skills shortage and a skills gap are separate and distinct phenomena.…”