A LACK of skills is threatening Yorkshire businesses, according to the largest employer survey ever to be conducted in England.

The survey, just published, shows that 20 per cent of job vacancies in Yorkshire and the Humber remain unfilled due to a lack of skilled applicants.

The Learning and Skills Council (LSC), the organisation responsible for skills development in England, commissioned the National Employers Skills Survey (NESS) 2003 which involved 72,100 interviews with a representative sample of employers in England across 27 industries.

In the Yorkshire region, NESS investigated 5,999 employers' attitudes to recruiting staff. Their answers suggest that, at any one time, there are 28,067 job vacancies that are hard-to-fill in the region and, of these, 13,729 that cannot be filled because of skill-shortages.

Skilled trades, such as plumbing and building, represented 20 per cent of total vacancies arising from skill-shortages.

Fifty one per cent of businesses bosses with hard-to-fill vacancies said the problem was that not enough applicants had the right skills for the job - closely followed by a low number of applicants generally and not enough people interested in doing the job.

Twenty-three per cent of employers with hard-to-fill vacancies blamed lack of work experience for their inability to fill posts.

Employers had strong concerns about their employees, with 30 per cent of Yorkshire businesses with skill gaps blaming a lack of motivation among staff.

Just over two-fifths of the region's employers surveyed had a training plan and one-third stated that they had a budget for training expenditure.

Mark Haysom, chief executive of the LSC, said: "This survey is all about listening to and understanding the needs of business. To remain competitive both nationally and internationally, English businesses must be strategic about staff training and development.

Updated: 10:10 Thursday, February 05, 2004