A staffing crisis where Gloucestershire is short of 45,000 workers in a decade's time could be a real prospect if business leaders do not act.

That was one of the message to the bosses of a cross-section of county firms at what was billed as "the county's first summit on productivity".

An estimated 120-plus delegates gathered at the engineering firm Renishaw's innovation centre for the University of Gloucestershire-organised event.

With better productivity businesses, through training and better culture, would in part solve the looming crisis - generating a more prosperous, thriving economy that would help keep and attract more people to the county.

"There is a real change happening. All the demographics are against us in the county. We have an aging population. We have more and more people retiring," said Chris Pockett, head of communications at Renishaw.

"On the positive side - we are creating large amounts of jobs in the county. But unless we can attract new people here and keep young people we will end up with a gap of 45,000 job vacancies by 2039 - that is in the county."

Mr Pockett was on the panel of experts who fielded questions from chairman Ian Mean, director of Business West for Gloucestershire, and from the floor. He was quoting figures from one of the event's key speakers, Stewart Barnes, managing director, QuoLux and visiting fellow of the University of Gloucestershire Business School

Panel members included Mr Barnes of Quolux, Stephen Marston, vice chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire, Rob Loveday, strategy director, GE Aviation, Malcolm Prowle, professor of performance management, University of Gloucestershire Business School and John Workman, senior partner corporate, BPE.

"In Gloucestershire we have two issues that are vital for our economy. One of them is skills - the lack of skills. The second is productivity. And they go together," said Mr Mean.

"As a county we are eight per cent below the national average in productivity. We don't know the answer. That is why we are getting together.

"It seems to me that leadership has a huge role to play in making people more productive. We also have to get the workforce more interested in working for employers. They have to get staff engaged."

According to the university productivity is seen as one of the biggest economic challenges facing the UK.

"Output per hour worked in the UK was 18 percentage points below the average for the remaining six members of the G7 group of industrial nationals in 2014 - the widest since 1991," according to the university, which was staging the summit in part to promote the centre it has set up to work with businesses to help tackle the issue - its Centre Innovation and Productivity at the Gloucestershire Business School.

Solutions suggested by the panel - which intended the summit as the beginning of real action for change - included longer term views by businesses, better investment, training opportunities at all levels for businesses in the county.