Skills shortage approaching critical

[MotherBear]

Skills shortage reaching critical stage
2:38PM Friday June 29, 2007

Employers in New Zealand are more concerned about a skills shortage than their equivalents in any other country in the world, a new survey shows.

The "brain drain", whereby our top skilled and educated young people are quitting New Zealand for greener pastures elsewhere, has led to skilled staff being the number one concern among businesses surveyed.

In its latest international business report, Grant Thornton International said 60 per cent of the New Zealand businesses surveyed put skills shortages at the top of their list of expansion constraints.

That made it a greater concern than the traditional bugbears of bureaucracy, the rising dollar, taxation and interest rates.

The figure was up from 38 per cent a year earlier and just ahead of two other southern hemisphere nations, Australia with 59 per cent and South Africa with 58 per cent.

More here .