Skills in Scotland 2006

Skills are important. A Smart, Successful Scotland emphasises the importance of individual skills and business growth on the promotion of enterprise. A crucial element in developing our understanding of skills issues in Scotland is gathering employers’ views.  We interviewed around 6,300 Scottish employers in summer 2006, making our Employer Skills Survey the largest survey of its type in Scotland. Skills in Scotland 2006 provides a robust analysis of Scottish employers’ views on skills, training and recruitment issues. Among other things the survey tells us that:

• the labour market in Scotland is fairly buoyant. Demand for labour is high and the labour market generally works well to meet that demand;
• most employers train their staff and many Scottish employees routinely receive off-the-job training;
• skill shortages are uncommon in the context of more than two million employees. However where they do occur they can have potentially severe consequences for business;
• more than nine in ten Scottish employees are fully proficient at their jobs. Just eight per cent of Scottish employees have a skill gap (i.e. are less than fully proficient) and most employers say that skill gaps have little impact on their business; and
• most employers who have recruited someone straight from school, college or university thought that the recruit was well-prepared for the world of work.

The full report contains more findings from the survey with breakdowns by size of workplace, industry and occupation.

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Questionnaire (PDF 315Kb) Full Report (PDF 394Kb) The reports are presented as Adobe Acrobat PDF files. You may acquire Acrobat Reader to view these files. This software is free.