City & Guilds report: employers see growing shortage of ‘employability’ skills while AI screening favors technical abilities

The useful part

New City & Guilds Employability Report reveals growing human skills shortage as employers turn to AI recruitment tools that prioritise technical skills | Onrec We apologize, our site does not support Internet Explorer 6 or 7. Please view our site in a different, standards-adherent browser such as Firefox, Safari, or Chrome, or upgrade your Internet Explorer browser to Version 8 or Version 9. Yet AI-powered recruitment tools are failing to prioritise these skills when screening potential candidates.

How it works

• Nearly three-quarters of employers (74%) say employability skills are now more important than technical expertise for workplace success.
• 43% of employers now use AI to screen or filter candidates, and more than two thirds (69%) believe these tools prioritise technical skills over the human capabilities businesses actually need.
• This means young people with strong employability skills risk being filtered out before a human ever sees their application.
• Many are turning to AI to respond to that anxiety: 41% are already using it to improve their work and communication skills.
• Employability skills – communication, problem solving and time management – matter just as much as technical know-how, if not more.

What to take from it

Andy Moss, Interim Chief Executive Officer of City & Guilds, said: "AI powered recruitment risks screening out the human skills employers say they need most. The problem may run deeper than skills alone. The findings come at a moment of acute national concern about young people's economic prospects.

Example or evidence

• The employability skills gap is widening The research, which surveyed 908 employers and 1,014 18-24 year olds, reveals that nearly two-thirds of UK businesses (64%) say candidates with these employability...
• Education and training providers should embed employability skills earlier, building young people's confidence in areas such as face-to-face communication before they enter the workplace, to close the gap...
• AI is raising the stakes, not relieving them The rise of AI is not relieving pressure on human skills, rather it is increasing it, as automation takes on more routine tasks.
• Young people are facing a crisis of confidence More than half (51%) of the 1,014 18 to 24-year-olds surveyed said they worry that AI will reduce job opportunities for people their age.

Details worth keeping

Yet AI-powered recruitment tools may be working against this. Only two in five young people (40%) feel completely confident in their face-to-face communication skills. Half (50%) of those surveyed say anxiety or mental health conditions have affected that confidence – more than any other factor cited, ahead of the pandemic (27%) or a lack of support at school (19%).

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