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Skills Shortage Exploration

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Skills Shortage Exploration

Freya, Finn and Kahu are organising a car wash fundraiser. They have plenty of volunteers, but not enough people who know how to safely use the equipment or manage bookings. Their problem gets them thinking: what happens when employers cannot find workers with the skills they need? Use the information below to explore skills shortages in Aotearoa New Zealand. The figures are fictional and are for practising economic thinking, not current job-market statistics.

Aotearoa’s workforce puzzle

A skills shortage occurs when employers cannot find enough workers with the skills or qualifications needed for available jobs. It can happen because demand for workers rises, experienced workers leave, training takes time, or workers live far from the jobs. Shortages can affect wages, prices, services and business growth.

Industry

Employers surveyed

Reporting difficulty recruiting

Construction and trades

Healthcare

Information technology

Hospitality

1.Read the fictional regional employer survey. Which industry had the greatest number of employers reporting recruitment difficulty?

2.Calculate the percentage of surveyed construction and trades employers who reported difficulty recruiting. Show your calculation.

3.Which statement best explains why the survey figures alone do not prove that healthcare has the most severe skills shortage?

The industries have different numbers of employers surveyed, so compare proportions as well as totals.
Healthcare workers never need qualifications.
A survey cannot include employers.
The industry with the most workers always has the highest shortage.

4.Choose one cause of skills shortages: rising demand, workers leaving, training taking time, or jobs being far from workers. Explain how it could create a shortage in one of the industries in the survey.

5.True or false: A skills shortage can make it harder for a business to expand, even if customers want more of its goods or services.

TrueFalse

6.If demand for qualified construction workers increases while the number of suitably skilled workers stays the same, what could happen to wages offered for those workers? Give one reason.

7.Freya suggests the car wash team train another volunteer to manage bookings. Match each action to the way it could help ease a skills shortage.

Fund training or apprenticeships
Improve pay or working conditions
Recruit workers from another region

May attract workers and encourage them to stay
Connects employers with workers who may not live nearby
Builds more workers’ skills for jobs that are hard to fill

8.A local employer pays for training so a new worker can gain a required qualification. Name one possible benefit for the worker and one possible benefit for the employer.

9.Kahu says, “If a job is on a shortage list, it will definitely suit every young person.” Is this a sound conclusion? Explain why or why not.

10.Write one practical next step a Year 9 student in New Zealand could take to explore a career in an industry with recruitment difficulties. Explain what they might learn from it.