The North West has around 60,000 passenger transport employees working in over 2,000 companies.  The regional workforce is 3% of England’s passenger transport sector workforce.  The region is the second highest issuer of hackney and private hire licenses (40,000) in England.

5% of the aviation industry workforce are from ethnic minority groups, compared to 6% of the working age population.  The average age of the passenger transport sector workforce is 44.5 years.  30% of the aviation workforce is over 55 years of age.

Key statistics:

• 12% growth in jobs over the last few years
• 27% of companies have employment vacancies, of which 59% are hard-to-fill
• 6% of companies are facing retention problems
• 19% report skills gaps
• skills gaps are reported for customer handling, problem solving and oral communication skills
• 36% of companies provide training for their employees, the highest proportion across the English regions
• 28% of companies found that there was a lack of funding available for training
• 16% found that there was a lack of suitable courses in the local area

Priorities for the region include:

• increase in airport passenger numbers
• airport expansion
• extension of the Greater Manchester metrolink tram system

For more detailed passenger transport priorities in the region go to the GoSkills North West regional fact sheet (2006).

Source: GoSkills regional fact sheet 2006 and GoSkills Skills Needs Assessment (stage 1) 2006a

For more regional data see: