Business leaders fora

Ibec regional seminar series 2015
The skills gap. Making the right connections.

Kilkenny – Cork – Limerick – Galway – Sligo – Dublin

As Ireland’s economic recovery gathers momentum, skill shortages are beginning to emerge in some key business sectors. This could be a major constraint on future growth unless the education and training system is closely aligned with the skill needs of employers, particularly at a regional level. Ensuring the future skills needs of the region are addressed is more difficult than responding to immediate needs, and requires a high degree of investment in intelligence gathering and forecasting, as well as means of persuading education and training institutions, and employers to respond.

In May 2015, Ibec held a series of regional seminars with the goal of building relationships and collaboration among these key players – public and private sector employers, education providers and policy makers. The seminars were based on the view that employers need to engage more with education and education providers should adapt to what business needs.

The seminars put a spotlight on the work currently been carried out by the Department of Education and Skills in setting up a Regional Skills Fora to support education institutions in establishing and maintaining connections and relationships with employers.

These events were supported by our primary events partner Electric Ireland and our communications partner Vodafone.

`Making the right connections, is a regional skills forum the answer'.pdf - 583 Kbytes