Employers stuck for trades people, technicians

By Rodney Joyce

TOKYO (Reuters) - While the world pursues the knowledge economy, employers are increasingly desperate for plumbers, welders and other technical staff, U.S. employment services firm Manpower Inc said on Tuesday, in its annual survey of staff shortages.

The overall proportion of employers who can't hire the people they want fell to 31 percent from 41 percent last year, the survey found, largely reflecting the U.S. slowdown.

But the survey of nearly 43,000 employers in 32 countries found the rising lament almost everywhere was for trades people and similar skilled, but not necessarily highly educated, positions.

"We've grown up and others have grown up talking about the knowledge environment, and parents are encouraging their children to go to college and get ahead, if you will," Manpower Chief Executive Jeff Joerres told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"What is happening is that it is leaving a major void."

While Europe has fretted about the eastward expansion of the European Union and the potential for a flood of Polish plumbers and the like heading west, the survey found most Western European nations had the most acute shortages in such traditional crafts.

Joerres said employers across the world were desperate to fill such positions, which rely on detailed skills obtained over many years, including factory and maintenance technicians.

"They basically would say: 'As many technicians as you have, we will take or as many IT programmers, or engineers' so we clearly feel the intensity of these sort of skill shortages," he said, when asked about the impact on his business.