Small businesses missing out on talent as job centres fail

Date: 17th September 2009

Small businesses are struggling to find talented staff as the nation's job centres are simply not working, it has been claimed.

A poll of 2,500 of its members carried out by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) found that around one in three believed the government-run employment centres to be ineffective at best.

Furthermore, 49 per cent of those questioned expressed a lack of understanding in how they work, despite the government's ongoing attempts to improve working relations between its Jobcentre Plus establishments and businesses of all sizes so as to address national skills shortages.

As well as failing to provide properly-qualified candidates, the FSB has also charged that job centres continue to prioritise larger organisations over smaller enterprises.

"The FSB is concerned the lion's share of funding from Jobcentre Plus currently goes to large companies and multi-nationals which would still provide training if public funding were not available," chairman John Wright explained.

These comments come as official figures show that unemployment in the UK has risen to 2.47 million, a 14-year high.