REC responds to Germanyís skills shortages intitiative - 08/2001

By Marcia Roberts, external relations director, Recruitment and Employment Confederation.

Germany has relaxed its immigration laws and will allow 50,000 extra workers to be recruited from abroad to help its employers fill their vacancies.

Last year, the UK relaxed the immigration laws considerably to help ease the skills shortage and aid economic growth across the board. However, this initiative has not gone far enough to solve the skills drought and in fact it has become increasingly difficult for UK employers in all sectors to find skilled candidates. Although Germanyís policy is more radical, it is merely a quick fix solution that does little to address the root of the skills shortage problem and the situation will persist into the future.

We believe that to relieve the immediate problem the Government must provide an environment that accommodates a flexible working culture. This can be achieved by working closely with employer groups and recruitment agencies, using their market knowledge to search and attract people from abroad to jobs in the UK. In the long term it must increase financial support into education and training programmes to harness domestic potential.î

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