Manufacturing, Construction, Transportation Industries Suffer From Huge Skills Gaps

51% of manufacturing and 49% of construction companies responded that new hires don’t have the necessary skills for the job when they’re hired, while 45% of transportation/warehousing companies stated the same.

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Nearly 72% of companies have unfilled positions due to their inability to find qualified deskless workers, according to a TalentCards survey backed by Epignosis and When I Work. What’s more is, 77% of companies in transportation and warehousing experience difficulties with finding employees, along with 74% of manufacturing companies and 69% of construction.

“What’s interesting is that almost all challenges can be solved with the right tech. Distributing training materials, evaluating knowledge retention, providing access to materials even on the go, sharing employee schedules— all these can be accomplished much faster and more efficiently through training software and mobile applications,” says Leonidas Palaiokostas, product owner of TalentCards.

“This survey shows that industries like manufacturing and construction continue to face challenges filling open positions,” says Chad Halvorson, founder and CMO of When I Work. “Thorough onboarding and on-the-job training are more crucial than ever to make sure new and existing employees are able to keep operations running smoothly.”

 

From PR Newswire:

  • 51% of manufacturing and 49% of construction companies responded that new hires don’t have the necessary skills for the job when they’re hired, while 45% of transportation/warehousing companies stated the same.
  • Despite the fact that 64% of companies continue to provide training at least once every six months even after new hires have completed onboarding, 32% of companies have reported experiencing an accident due to improper training.
  • Apart from a lack of skills, other challenges onboarding managers face include a lack of time to devote to training, difficulty in evaluating if training is completed and difficulty sharing training materials with deskless employees.
  • With the talent race raging, over half of companies surveyed (54%) have offered higher pay to reduce turnover. Nearly half (47%) have offered flexible working shifts, and 32% have offered better benefits to retain their deskless workers. 
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