A majority of businesses are worried about future recruiting according to the AXA Risk Monitor Report.

The study found that 82% of companies worried about recruitment and that 46% of businesses consider lack of good staff as the most common reason for business failure.

It found 69% of those surveyed said it has been harder to recruit over the past three years and they consider the main reasons for this being an insufficient quality of candidates to meet requirements, lack of skills in the market and changes in standards of education.

Kim Clemo, AXA HR director, says: “Many of us happily chant the well known adage that your most valuable business assets walk in and out of your door each day. At the same time we then wring our hands in dismay that we can’t get the staff, can’t afford to hire the best, and the people we do have don’t have the skills we need.

“If we can’t hire the right skills, and our survey suggests we can’t, then we must create them from our existing workforce. It needn’t be expensive, or put another way, not doing training could be very expensive indeed,” Clemo adds.