The skills assessment from Oxfords Economics which featured recently in these columns predicts there will be more than 15,000 "job openings" across the Scottish Borders region during the next ten years, most of them arising from the thousands of people reaching retirement age between 2018 and 2028.
We have already reported on the warnings contained in the document about likely difficulties in recruiting sufficient labour, partly because the proportion of Borders residents in the 16-64 age group (working population) is set to decrease through to 2041. At the same time the local numbers of registered births has fallen consistently over the last five years.
The report explains that falling female part-time employment and male full-time employment is expected to drive the decline in total employment.
"The expected decline in employment in the Scottish Borders over the next ten years is driven entirely by losses in part-time employment. Forecasts suggest there will be 200 fewer part-time roles by 2028 with the number of full-time roles remaining broadly flat. This obscures changes in employment by gender. Female part-time employment is forecast to decline by 800 jobs over 2018-2028, offset by a rise in full-time employment of 900 jobs. Male full-time employment, by contrast, is expected to decline by 900 jobs over 2018-2028, with an increase in part-time employment of 600 jobs."
And the local manufacturing sector, already hit by hundreds of job losses over the last 30 years, is predicted to take a further hit in the immediate future.
According to the report: "Job losses are expected to be largest in manufacturing in the Scottish Borders. In contrast to this, robust employment growth in the construction sector is forecast over the period, adding nearly 400 additional jobs by 2028 and helping to offset the losses forecast in other sectors – such as the manufacturing and agriculture sectors which are forecast to decrease by 900 and 300 jobs, respectively. Most private services sectors are expected to enjoy modest growth over this period too, with their share of total employment rising from 46 per cent in 2018 to 48 per cent in 2028."
Turning to the job openings picture Oxford Economics say: "There are expected to be 15,700 job openings in the region between 2018 and 2028, driven entirely by replacement demand. Net change in employment is expected to result in 100 fewer people employed in the region over the next decade.
"Replacement demand, which captures people leaving the labour market or moving between occupations, is forecast to result in job openings for 15,800 people over the next ten years. As a consequence of this labour market churn, openings are expected across the majority of occupations, including those that are expected to see lower levels of employment in the future."
There is expected to be 8,000 fewer people (down from 68,000 to 60,000) in the working population sector by 2041.
The overall situation is described in the following terms: "As of 2016, 60 per cent of the population of the Scottish Borders, or 68,300 people, were of working age (16-64). Outside of this age range, 17 per cent were aged 0-15 (19,000 people), 14 per cent were aged between 65 and 74 (15,400 people) and the remaining ten per cent were aged 75 or older (11,800 people).
"Forecasts suggest there will be important changes to the age structure of the population of the region over the coming decades. The working age population is expected to fall from 60 per cent to 51 per cent by 2041, or 60,200 people. At the same time, the numbers aged 75+ are expected to increase by 80 per cent, a projected increase of 9,400 people; alongside a ten per cent increase in the numbers aged 65–74, a projected increase of 1,500 people. In contrast, all other age groups are expected to decline with the number of people aged 50-64 expected to decrease the most (18 per cent, or 4,800 people)."
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