New research underscores skills crisis

A new report by north east recruiters Ingenia has underlined the extent of the skills crisis within the industry.

It has described the crisis as “critical” and says a lack of skills is now costing dealers millions of pounds.

Its research has found that 68.4% of its vacancies are for productives – up 47.3% in 2020 and 24.9% in 2006 – while 65.4% of those are for vehicle technicians. This is a trend within dealerships, bodyshops and independent workshops across the region.

It believes this is the result of dealerships not investing enough in apprentices in recent years.

The report said: “We looked at online website vacancies posted by motor dealers, bodyshops and specialist independents in the north east of England. Of the vacancies posted requiring productives on 29 April, 90.6% were for vehicle technicians. Although we are continuously receiving more applications for productive roles, the number of applicants that we interview is on a major decline. The reason for this is simply because these applicants are either not qualified/experienced, their skill level wouldn’t meet client’s requirements, or they clearly do not stay in a job for very long.”

Steve Shaw, director of Ingenia Recruitment, said: “We are in the midst of a dire situation, with no short term solution in sight. Recruiting apprentices now is the right things to do, and indeed must be done; but due to their very nature, will take years to achieve the skill level of those technicians we are losing.

“Recruiting and training semi-skilled people could offer a partial solution, but once these people are recruited, they need a lot of training, mentoring, support and patience; things that we generally tend not to be very good at. Our current system of ‘giving them a chance’, throw them a service or pad and discs to replace and see how they get on, simply does not work. Most companies have resorted to increasing the wage for productives, but all this has resulted in is speeding up the merry-go-round with no net gain for the industry as a whole.

“Increasing the wage to attract apprentice applications will help, but as previously stated, the need for productives is immediate.

“Obviously our research and findings is our own and therefore north east-based, but I am aware that these issues are not isolated to our region,” Shaw added.