Last week I hosted my sixth Jobs Fair in. We had over 40 exhibitors, offering jobs across a wide range of activities. With around 750 people on jobseekers allowance, all invited notified by Job Centre Plus, and with over 1,000 hits on the Facebook page, we were expecting a good turnout from the 1.5% of the local population who are actively looking for work.

When I was elected in 2010, I inherited around 2,500 people looking for work. My first Jobs Fairs drew around 1,000 job seekers. Last week, of the 750 claiming jobseekers’ allowance, fewer than 100 came to the Jobs Fair.

There could be any number of reasons why 650 people seeking employment didn’t come to the Jobs Fair. It could have been down to how I publicised the event. But the problem I inherited has now been reversed. In 2010 we had more people looking for work than jobs available: now we have more employers looking for staff than people looking for work. This problem is compounded when taking into account the skills gap of job seekers abilities failing to reach the skills employers need.

For those with skills, this is good news as demand is growing for their abilities. But there are two areas of concern that we need to address arising from this new problem.

The first is that we know we have over 1,000 new jobs coming to the district just from two employers. Add to this the construction work going on and there is far greater demand for skills than skilled workers available. This puts upward pressure on wages and some smaller businesses in Wyre Forest could see their key staff being poached by incoming new businesses, pushing up local wage packets. Good – very good – for workers; less so for employers having to adjust.

The second problem is one of changing the local economy here in Wyre Forest. Whilst there will be casualties as some businesses can’t compete with higher wages, we do need to raise the value of the local economy and we do that by attracting more higher paying and higher value businesses. But they won’t come if they can’t find staff.

Skills and productivity is everything. I will always put on jobs fairs whilst there are people looking for work. But from now on, my emphasis has to be to deliver more training and skills opportunities to the district.