Small high-tech companies are at last getting the opportunity to say where government policy towards small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) is failing them.
A new national survey of SMEs is intended to find out what are their concerns and could lead to better directed support from the UK Government and the industry's trade associations.
The survey is the brainchild of the UK Electronics Alliance (UKEA) and the Electronics Leadership Council, and the industry quangos are working with distributor Premier Farnell to promote it.
This could be the most useful initiative to come out of the UKEA.
When it was launched in 2006, the UKEA's stated aim was to bring together the fragmented trade associations under one umbrella.
And now after almost four years we have a positive attempt to start to make that happen.
I am tempted to ask the UKEA why has it taken so long?
Surely, SME's would have welcomed a chance to air their concerns back in 2006, when it first became apparent that the existing network of "fragmented trade associations" was failing them.
The UKEA was launched on a wave of hope that things would change in 2006. But in the last four years all I can recall coming out of the UKEA have been initiatives on the skills shortage and counterfeit components.
Of course these are important topics and the initiatives are welcome.
But I have an aching feeling that the industry was hoping for so much more from the UKEA, which was seen as a "super-alliance" of trade associations with the power to give the industry a real voice in government.
We were led to believe that the governement would have been receptive to this. After all it proposed the creation of the UKEA because it did not want to waste time talking to lots of smaller trade bodies.
If the UKEA has influenced government policy over the last four years, some one should tell us how and where, because it is not all that obvious to the untrained eye.
I recognise that this SME survey could change the picture.
Now it is up to the SMEs to take it seriously and use the survey to tell the UKEA, ELC and government what needs to be done.
When you use the phrase "labor shortage" or "skills shortage" you're speaking in a sentence fragment. What you actually mean to say is: "There is a labor shortage at the salary level I'm willing to pay." That statement is the correct phrase; the complete sentence and the intellectually honest statement.
Some people speak about shortages as though they represent some absolute, readily identifiable lack of desirable services. Price is rarely accorded its proper importance in their discussion.
If you start raising wages and improving working conditions, and continue doing so, you'll solve your shortage and will have people lining up around the block to work for you even if you need to have huge piles of steaming manure hand-scooped on a blazing summer afternoon.
Re: Shortage caused by employees retiring out of the workforce: With the majority of retirement accounts down about 50% or more, most people entering retirement age are working well into their sunset years. So, you won’t be getting a worker shortage anytime soon due to retirees exiting the workforce.
Okay, fine. Some specialized jobs require training and/or certification, again, the solution is higher wages and improved benefits. People will self-fund their re-education so that they can enter the industry in a work-ready state. The attractive wages, working conditions and career prospects of technology during the 1980’s and 1990’s was a prime example of people’s willingness to self-fund their own career re-education.
There is never enough of any good or service to satisfy all wants or desires. A buyer, or employer, must give up something to get something. They must pay the market price and forego whatever else he could have for the same price. The forces of supply and demand determine these prices -- and the price of a skilled workman is no exception. The buyer can take it or leave it. However, those who choose to leave it (because of lack of funds or personal preference) must not cry shortage. The good is available at the market price. All goods and services are scarce, but scarcity and shortages are by no means synonymous. Scarcity is a regrettable and unavoidable fact.
Shortages are purely a function of price. The only way in which a shortage has existed, or ever will exist, is in cases where the "going price" has been held below the market-clearing price.