The Isle of Man prides itself on being ’a special place to live and work’.

We believe this is a uniquely attractive location with outstanding employment opportunities and an unrivalled quality of life.

The Locate Isle of Man website advertises the island as the safest place in the British Isles, where people live in harmony with the environment, enjoy a fantastic work-life balance and receive average salaries 19 per cent higher than the UK.

It sounds irresistible. Why, then, do our private and public sectors find it so difficult to import skilled staff?

According to the Locate Isle of Man Strategy report approved at the February Tynwald, inability to fill existing vacancies is ’the single biggest subject discussed within industry’.

The Department for Enterprise report estimates around 1,000 empty positions across the economy. Skills shortages are acute in ICT, financial services, accountancy, engineering, manufacturing, healthcare, education and hospitality.

One in three employers complain that lack of labour is holding their organisation back.

Stressing the importance of growing the economically active population, the report confirms that with low local unemployment the vast majority of this growth has to come from migration of workers into the island.

The skills gap is by no means a new challenge, yet the DfE report offers little analysis of the reasons why it has been so hard to get staff to move here. It does refer to the work permit system, which the department has successfully streamlined following complaints from business.

One strand of the strategy is to ’better understand skills shortages’. Given that this has been an obvious problem for some years now, one can only wonder why this understanding has not already been achieved.

The solution in the meantime is to use public subsidy to incentivise recruitment, either through government grants to employers or the national insurance holiday for new arrivals announced in the latest Manx budget.

Continuing economic growth is a national priority, and it is evident that bringing in skilled workers is necessary to realise this ambition. So we have to be honest and clear about the things that are hindering inward migration (aka ’immigration’).

As a community the Isle of Man has never been good at intelligent self-criticism. We veer from the mindless negativity of the forums to the complacency of politicians who seem to believe their own propaganda.

The Manx are traditionally thin-skinned, and there was always a boat in the morning for any whinging pom who dared to find fault with our way of life. We over-react to external criticism and are shocked to discover that our love of the Isle of Man is not shared universally.

Participants in public debate are expected to be ’positive’, to boost confidence by talking the place up at every opportunity, as if the world were listening to every word of our internal dialogue.

But if we are serious about attracting new people to help deliver growth, we need a mature, open discussion about the pros and cons of our island home, actual and perceived.

What makes us so very different from all the peripheral regions also promoting themselves in the hope of attracting new blood? Some of them have countryside and community too, but with cheaper housing and easier transport links.

We do still have lower tax, but it is no longer politically correct to boast about this advantage for fear of upsetting the neighbours.

Let us not forget, in our patriotic fervour, that the Isle of Man is a small island in the middle of the Irish Sea.

Social and leisure opportunities are necessarily limited, and the only means of escape are by sea or air.

This can look problematic for those who are used to getting in their car whenever they want to go somewhere different and interesting.

Housing here is more expensive than many of the areas of the north of England which we otherwise resemble. Our image is less glamorous than the rival Channel Islands, offshore Lancashire rather than offshore France, though some of us prefer a place with northern character.

The island is not an especially exciting location for young people, so we should be realistic about the chances of enticing Manx graduates back soon after they have qualified.

It is surely better if our sons and daughters return later, when they have gained experience and are ready to raise families. For the Isle of Man is ideal for bringing up children - safe, friendly and clean - and that has to be one of our strongest selling points.

Meanwhile we need to know more about the factors restricting the immigration of skilled workers, because we cannot assess the solution until we understand the problem.

As the solution so far includes the use of taxpayers money to subsidise recruitment, this is a matter of public interest as well as commercial concern.