More than half of businesses in some rural parts of Devon find it difficult to recruit skilled staff, according to a survey by a regeneration group. About 2,000 businesses in north Devon, Torridge, west Devon and the South Hams took part in the survey conducted by Devon Renaissance.
Of those, 56% said they found it hard to recruit staff with skills they need.
The biggest shortages are in sales, marketing, and business planning. About 17% said road access caused problems.
Natural growth
The aim of the survey was to discover how productive rural businesses were and to help them access the type of help they needed in the future.
About 46% of firms said they were not interested in growing, or just plan to grow naturally so do not have a business-plan.
More than 50% do not trade over the internet, with one-in-six saying road access was the biggest constraint on their business.
Devon Renaissance said it now intended to survey the Teignbridge, mid and east Devon areas to get a better picture of the state of county's business community as a whole.
Devon Renaissance is a not-for-profit partnership of the private sector, local authorities and community-based organisations funded mainly by the South West Regional Development Agency.
The organisation provides grant funding in order to help create prosperity and jobs and improve access to services in rural areas.
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