BICS weighted Scotland estimates: data to wave 109

Recruitment

In Wave 109 (20 May to 2 June 2024), businesses were asked about the types of employees that have been difficult to recruit in April 2024 – the specific question asked is shown below.

Recruitment Difficulty Type question: Which of the following employees, if any, did your business have difficulties recruiting in April 2024?

• clerical employees
• professional or managerial employees
• semi-skilled or unskilled employees
• skilled, manual or technical employees
• other
• not sure
• business did not experience any difficulties in recruiting employees

Figure 1: In Wave 109, 17.4% of businesses reported difficulties recruiting ‘Skilled, Manual or Technical’ employees and 14.9% of business reported difficulties recruiting ‘Semi-skilled or Unskilled’ employees. However, more than half of businesses (52.2%) reported that they had not experienced any difficulties in recruiting employees.

Estimated share of businesses by recruitment difficulty. Businesses not permanently stopped trading, with 10+ employees and a presence in Scotland. Wave 109 – April 2024.

Source: BICS Weighted Scotland Estimates - Wave 109 from the Scottish Government. For Figure 1 data see table ‘RecruitDiffType’.

In Wave 109, businesses who experienced recruitement difficulties, were asked about the reasons for this.

Figure 2: In Wave 109, 49.8% of businesses with recruitment difficulties reported that this was due to a lack of qualified applicants for the roles on offer. The next most commonly reported reason was that there was a low number of applicants for the roles on offer (33.9%).

Estimated share of businesses by reason for recruitment difficulty. Businesses not permanently stopped trading and exerpienced recruitment difficulties, with 10+ employees and a presence in Scotland. Wave 109 – April 2024.

Source: BICS Weighted Scotland Estimates - Wave 109 from the Scottish Government. For Figure 2 data see table ‘RecruitYDiff’.