National Employer Skills Survey for England 2009: Main report
The National Employer Skills Survey for England 2009: Main report, follows an abridged Key findings report, which was published in March. NESS09 is an employer survey asking establishments about
(i) recruitment problems,
(ii) skills gaps,
(iii) training practices and training expenditure, as in previous years, but also about skill updating needs in their workforce, the recession, and their product market strategies.
National Employer Skills Survey for England 2009: Main report: Evidence Report 23 (PDF, 4.5 Mb)
Published August 2010
Fieldwork was carried out between March and July 2009. With a sample of 79,152, NESS09 is representative by region, SSC sector and size of establishment, meaning that the results created at these levels are statistically robust.
The headline findings from the 2009 survey are that:
levels of vacancies, hard-to-fill vacancies and skill-shortage vacancies have fallen sharply since 2007, in line with what might be expected during a recession;
skills gaps (where the current workforce is thought not be fully proficient at their jobs) have risen since 2007, both in terms of the proportion of establishments experiencing them and in terms of the proportion of the workforce. Again, this may be recession-related as employers expect more from their staff as they decide not to fill vacancies and diversify their product offer to keep competitive;
the proportion of establishments training is unchanged since 2007, but the proportion of the workforce being trained has fallen, and the amount being spent on training has decreased in real terms by 5 per cent
