The owner of Dulux paint has warned that the UK is facing a skills crunch that could exacerbate the country’s housing shortage.
AkzoNobel, one of the biggest industrial companies in Europe, has opened a new academy in Slough designed to train painters and decorators in an attempt to stop a slide in the number of tradesmen in Britain.
Recent surveys have claimed there is a shortage of 33,000 tradesmen in London and the south-east alone, while two thirds of construction firms claim they have turned down work because of a lack of resources.
Matt Pullen, head of AkzoNobel in the UK, said: “Demand is growing and supply is constrained. It is a bit of crunch. This could lead to a situation where homebuilding slows down because you don’t have the tradesmen to fill the building.”
The academy will train between 3,000 and 4,000 people a year when it is up and running and has been accredited by the City & Guilds institute.
Pullen was speaking at a briefing in London where Ton Büchner, the chief executive of AkzoNobel, called on the UK to remain in the EU. AkzoNobel has close links to the UK after buying the chemicals group ICI in 2008 for £8bn. The company employs more than 3,600 people in the country.
Büchner said: “From a business perspective we would have a desire for the UK to stay inside. From a personal opinion, I would much rather have the UK actually help to improve the EU from within rather than commenting from the sidelines.”
Büchner is one of a number of executives to speak out about the UK remaining in the EU, alongside Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, and Henri de Castries, the boss of Axa, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies.
However, Büchner refused to say that AkzoNobel would reconsider making investments in the UK if it left the EU. He said the company had invested in the UK for “reasons other than its presence in the EU”.
Nonetheless, he added: “A country that has that level of relevance in a geographical area like Europe should be in [the EU] from where we stand.”
