The Welsh economy faces a number of challenges in the future. Two of the most prominent are Brexit and the disruptive nature of the digital economy. Both have the potential to fundamentally change the way businesses operate and both could have an impact on the nature of employment and skills needs within businesses across the Welsh economy.
For Brexit, our previous research has shown that faced with increasing difficulties in attracting and retaining skilled labour, firms will either absorb the costs of recruiting from elsewhere to fill their skills needs or will increase the level of training they give to their existing workforce.1 Both of these outcomes will provoke questions for the nature, cost and content of skills provision in Wales and the existing routes to employment.
Likewise, much has been said about the impact digital innovation could have on firms. Whilst projections of impact are highly contested, a review commissioned by Welsh Government suggested as many as a third of Welsh jobs were vulnerable to advances in automation and artificial intelligence.
Whilst we cannot predict the future, we can say with some surety that businesses will need to be resilient to such changes.
In the context of these key challenges, Welsh Government is embarking on a number of reforms to employment and skills. It is for that reason, that FSB Wales commissioned a survey of SMEs to better understand their employment and skills requirements.