BICS weighted Scotland estimates: data to wave 115

Recruitment

In Wave 115 (19 August to 1 September 2024), businesses were asked about the types of employees that have been difficult to recruit in July 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 July 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 115, 16.7% of businesses reported difficulties recruiting ‘Skilled, Manual or Technical’ employees and 16.5% of business reported difficulties recruiting ‘Semi-skilled or Unskilled’ employees. However, more than half of businesses (51.3%) 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 115 – July 2024.

Source: BICS Weighted Scotland Estimates - Wave 115 from the Scottish Government. For Figure 1 data see table ‘RecruitDiffType’.

In Wave 115, businesses who experienced recruitement difficulties, were asked about the reasons for this.

Figure 2: In Wave 115, 46.9% 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 (37.7%).

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 115 – July 2024.

Source: BICS Weighted Scotland Estimates - Wave 115 from the Scottish Government. For Figure 2 data see table ‘RecruitYDiff’.