HALTON textile manufacturers and clothing businesses could be eating into their profits by investing in the wrong kind of staff training.
Skillfast UK, the skills council for the clothing manufacturing industry, says 3,400 North West businesses waste £72m in this way. Only an estimated 10% of the training is appropriate.
A spokeswoman for the organisation said: 'This industry contributes more than £10 billion to the UK economy each year and employs more than 380,000 people - and yet we are unable to provide employers with the appropriate training for their staff to ensure their businesses are equipped to face the challenges of an increasingly competitive market.
'Fashion design courses account for 40% of all sector-relevant courses but there are very few of these types of vacancies.
'This bias does not properly represent the diversity of the rest of the sector.'
