The agency says thousands of people will need retraining

Scottish Enterprise predicted that about 100,000 job vacancies would need to be filled every year.

Most will be to replace people in professional and higher skilled jobs.

The agency said that failing to equip people with the skills required by business could threaten Scotland's future economic growth.

The Scottish Enterprise report on market projections predicted that the shift from manufacturing to service sector employment will increase the demand for better educated staff with different types of skills.

It is quite critical that the skills agenda and the skills strategy is clearly led by the demand from business Liz Cameron Scottish Chambers of Commerce

It said the government's skills policy would need to focus on training migrant workers, the long-term unemployed and school leavers.

Charlene O'Connor, from the agency's skills and learning initiative, said the number of new jobs being created was good news for the country, but added that filling them with suitably skilled workers would present major challenges.

She said: "The volume of jobs is going to continue to increase whilst a fairly large proportion of that will be replacement jobs, there will be a significant number of new jobs.

"We are seeing an increase in skill level requirements among employers and we have got to make sure the ladders are in place for all the people of Scotland to benefit from this opportunity."

Liz Cameron from the Scottish Chambers of Commerce said it was "critical" that the skills issue was placed at the top of the economic agenda.

She said: "Businesses have been saying for a number of years that quite frankly the skills agenda is a fundamental issue which could impact on the wonderful growth rates that we are experiencing now.

"It is quite critical that the skills agenda and the skills strategy is clearly led by the demand from business."

'Exciting opportunities'

Dr Peter Hughes, chief executive of Scottish Engineering, said it was "great news" that so many new skilled jobs were being created.

He added: "We have been saying for the last two years that there is a significant skill shortage right now.

"Everywhere I go employers are looking for skilled people and many companies are spending a lot of money on training and upskilling."

Dr Hughes said that the Scottish economy had been helped greatly by the 47,000 Eastern European migrant workers who have moved here to work, but warned there was no guarantee they would stay.

He added that some employers had complained that many potential employees lacked basic skills like arithmetic.

Dr Hughes added: "Despite that, we are producing a lot of great youngsters right now from our Scottish schools.

Temporary jobs

"What we have got to do is get the message to them that there are exciting opportunities out there, particularly in manufacturing and engineering."

Policy analyst Gerry Haslan said many people were in danger of being left behind by the rapidly changing job market.

He added: "The upskilling agenda doesn't acknowledge that a countertrend of downskilling is also happening.

"Lots of people are either in very temporary jobs where they can't get out of poverty, or people have very little skills and are getting further removed from the labour market.

"The labour market is leaving them over the horizon and they have less and less chance of getting off benefits."