Page 22 - Pembrokeshire Skills Report 2024

Labour Market
At the macroeconomic level, the county has
barely sufficient workforce to deliver the projects
already underway without factoring in new
emerging industries
Offshore energy, Port renovation, and the
commerce that freeports will provide has
estimated up to16,000 jobs will be created.
The region already has:
• Low unemployment rate
• High retirement risk
• Talent drain
• Declining birth numbers
Mobility of Workforce
Rising fuel, insurance and vehicle costs, presents
a problem given some parts of the region being
rural for workforce mobility. Knock on effects to:
• Recruitment and retention
• Younger people unable to afford
transportation
• More demand for home working
• Risk of losing skills where better
remote working packages offered
• Talent drain issue could rapidly get
worse
• Education and Learners
• Difficulty getting to and from
education institutions
• Requirement of more eLearning and
blended learning options
Barriers to the objectives
Filling the retirement hole
• 5-15 age group is around 12% less than the
55-64 group,
• (69%) of SMEs currently facing skills
shortages and 70% stating this causes
increased workload on current staff.
New report: The Business Barometer 2023 | Open
University
Core Economy Industry Perceptions
Perceptions of local industry by the future
workforce is also of concern, with Construction,
& Engineering not deemed to be a valid career
pathway for many younger people in education.
Digital Skills
The innovation that the Freeports will bring will
certainly require new digital skill sets.
However digital skills are still not taught in a
consistent way in many schools across the
Freeport regions, even though an entire
generation has grown up in a fully connected
digital world. This could be due to:
• Teacher and educator skill shortages on
digital subjects
• Lack of syllabus clarity
• Fast changing pace of digital
22