The labour shortage has been a top concern for businesses in Manchester for the past few years. Data from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation revealed that local businesses have vacancies for more than 111,000 jobs. These vacancies are also stemming from different sectors, such as healthcare, technology, business, finance, accounting, and construction.
Unfortunately, these labour shortages can restrict local businesses’ output growth and strain the economy. Unless the labour shortage gets resolved, businesses in Manchester will continue to have limited productivity and growth.
Manchester Businesses Are Experiencing Reduced Productivity
The labour shortages across various industries in Manchester are greatly affecting the productivity of businesses. The Guardian reports that Manchester is one of the English university towns that has the lowest rate of claimants to job vacancies in the UK. Jane Gratton, the head of people policy at the BCC, explains to the Guardian that these shortages are very concerning because they jeopardise businesses’ growth and productivity. Plenty of businesses have been trying to recruit professionals for months, affecting their ability to complete projects or fulfil consumer tasks.
One sector that’s significantly impacted by this shortage is Greater Manchester’s tech industry. Greater Manchester happens to be the fastest-growing tech cluster outside of London. Unfortunately, businesses in the area had to advertise over 50,000 tech jobs in 2021 to maintain their progress within the industry. Businesses are already offering tech training programmes to help fill in the vacancies and ensure that the area remains one of the biggest tech hubs in the UK.
How Businesses Can Cope With Staffing Shortages
Prioritise internal mobility
Before looking for new employees, businesses should evaluate their current workforce and identify any individuals who are qualified to fill in the vacancies.
These internal mobility programmes are beneficial for both employers and employees because they can boost the morale of the workforce and speed up the search for talent. To achieve this, businesses need to communicate internal opportunities to their current workforce and identify the steps that they can take toward a promotion. Employers can even develop more accessible paths for their current employees by investing in their training and mentoring for certain roles.
Explore various recruitment solutions
Once businesses have optimised their current workforce, they can fill in the remaining vacancies through recruitment solutions that are suitable to their needs.
The recruitment solutions listed on LHH show that businesses can opt for either full-time or interim talents to transform their organisation, especially during a challenging labour shortage. Some businesses can use professional staffing solutions to get temporary help for projects and contractual work while they take their time to look for full-time staff. Meanwhile, businesses that have struggled with the hiring process can use permanent placement solutions to speed up their search for full-time staff.
Invest in business digitalisation
Aside from getting recruitment solutions, businesses can also fill certain vacancies permanently by digitalising their systems.
A BBC article shows that automation solutions are in-demand among businesses that have been suffering from labour shortages. Though these technologies are quite an investment, they can speed up certain work processes and reduce a company’s requirement for human labour. These automation solutions can even improve the work performance of employees by taking over repetitive tasks. These automation tools allow businesses to assign easy and repetitive tasks to technologies and allocate more complex tasks to their limited workforce.
Staffing shortages are one of the factors that prevent local businesses from increasing their revenues and achieving more progress. As such, local businesses are encouraged to improve or revolutionise their recruitment practices to fill in their vacancies.
