RESEARCH into skills gaps and recruitment challenges in the North-east is to be carried out as part of a programme to support people into work.
Aberdeen City Council, on behalf of the Local Employability Partnership (LEP), is conducting a skills audit of employers with a view to identifying additional opportunities to support people into work, while also ensuring the city has an appropriately skilled workforce.
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The work, led by the Council’s ABZWorks employability service, is being taken forward as part of the LEP Delivery and Action Plan. The findings will help inform the Council’s employability commissioning activity and so ensure that training provided matches not only the aspirations of people receiving employability support, but also the skills and recruitment needs of employers in the Aberdeen travel-to-work area.
Council co-leader Christian Allard said: “Aberdeen has a wonderfully diverse range of business types and employment opportunities. We know there are skills gaps and recruitment challenges, and employers need an adequately skilled workforce in order to flourish and grow.
“This skills audit will not only support our efforts to move people into work, to progress in the workplace, and move out of poverty, but will also support delivery of the Regional Economic Strategy through the building and developing of our working age population.
“I would encourage all employers, regardless of size, in and around Aberdeen to respond to the survey so that we have the fullest picture of the current situation possible.
“Doing so will ensure that we are best placed to ensure the city has the workforce it needs and in doing so, upskill people to enable them to secure work and help address the cost of living crisis many are experiencing.”
The Aberdeen LEP Skills Audit is available at https://forms.office.com/e/Rx6Lix4y40 and will be open until 3 July.
The LEP brings the Council together with Skills Development Scotland, the Department for Work and Pensions, NESCol, Business Gateway, DYW-NE, Aberdeen City Health and Social Care Partnership, ACVO, and the Aberdeen Employability Training Providers Forum.
