International Human Resource Management 國際人力資源管理


頁數(shù)：22 字數(shù)：5056

1.Introduction

Nowadays, in the twenty-first century, intense and fierce competition will certainly continue to be the important issue for every organization. To enhance employee’s knowledge can be the crucial way to help organization to gain competitive advantage in turbulent environment (Nonaka, I. and Takeuchi, H. 1995). This theory is also suitable for the country. One country with bad skill mix and unfavorable skill level will definitely lose the competitive advantage in the global market (Burton-Jones, A. 1999). For this reason, to “update” your people’s knowledge and perspectives and equip them could be very essential for every country to consider about. There is no doubt that technology is ubiquitous in business and education today. The rapid advancement in information technologies has brought enormous business opportunities as well as challenges. With the demand of skill is increasing in twenty-first century, it is necessary for every country to build self-suitable skill formation strategies to achieve the effectiveness of skill structure. UK as important international player, has been criticized for not dealing with its labor market effectively and also suffering skills shortage in key areas. Therefore the economy is becoming uncompetitive as a result. So UK government has already made some strategies to solve this problem, such as enhancing young labor’s skills, improving vocational education. 2.The problems of skills in UK

The rapid advancement in information and communication technologies has brought enormous business opportunities as well as challenges. One great challenge is the demand of developing and updating skills is increasing. Gibb (2000) believe that knowledge economy and information trends evolve and core business activities shift into new territories, there is a great need for companies to facilitate a corresponding change and development in the skills base of the workforce. The abilities and skills of people will be crucial to the prosperity of one country’s economy (Dench, S. 2002), but skill shortage could hamper a country’s ability to stay competitive and sustainable in the global area. Nowadays, The UK has been criticized for not dealing with its labor market effectively and suffering skills shortages in key areas (Gaillie, D. 1998; Penn, R. 1999; Hines, A. 2000; Borghans, L 2001; Keep, E. 2002). According to DTI (2002) studies, The UK’ s economic performance lags behind other developed countries. In terms of GDP per head, the UK is ranked 18th out of 29 OECD countries – only fractionally above both the OECD and EU averages. And productivity growth has been particularly slow in the service sector (HMT, 2002).
It is true that nearly most industries are heavily dependent on the adequate supply of a skilled labor force, and as a result the skilled labor shortage in the UK has received considerable attention in recent years (Foley, P. and Watts, D. 1999; Borghans, L 2001). For example, service industry is one of the key industries in UK and it suffers a lot from skill shortage (HMT, 2002; DTI, 2002). The important of service sector cannot be denied. “Of the three sectors of the economy in Britain, agriculture now accounts for 1.3 percent of employment, manufacturing 17.5 percent and services 76 percent”(Labor ma