EU SME skills and training needs research, a summary from the EU in Brussels

UK research conducted by Delta Economics

Craft enterprises provide a wide range of vital products and services at local level. Many are very small firms - indeed often only the owner is involved. Micro-enterprises, of which many are craft firms, face particular challenges due to their small scale.

Whilst over 99% of all enterprises in Europe are SMEs, 90% of SMEs are actually micro-enterprises - with fewer than 10 employees - and the average company has just five workers. However, these micro-enterprises account for 53% of all jobs in Europe, so their importance to the European economy is enormous.

Their small size and limited resources mean micro-enterprises face particular problems. Finding the finance to get a new business going, or to grow an existing one is a difficult challenge. 

Whilst micro-enterprises are very often the source of innovation, they are also especially vulnerable to competition from counterparts who introduce new products or services, or improve their production processes, lacking the resources to respond rapidly.

Micro-enterprises in particular are affected by shortages of skilled labour, and need to overcome their difficulties in attracting the most skilled workers. The Commission strongly supports initiatives to identify future skills needs and to make education and training more available to employers and employees alike throughout their whole professional lifetime.

In 2009 the Commission launched a study to identify the future skills needs for micro and craft (-type) enterprises. The study presents the most important skills needs from the point of view of enterprises, business organisations and training institutes. The field work was carried out in eight European countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, United Kingdom) focusing on the three sectors (construction, food, personal/health services). The results identify actions needed to forecast future skills needs, to better communicate future skills needs and to integrate them more systematically in training schemes for craft and micro companies.

The 3 UK research projects can be accessed from the right hand side of this web page. The sectors assessed were Food, Construction and Health care.