We need a workforce with the right experience and skills to respond

Last week, Chris Grayling had to cave into pressure over unpaid work experience as big name employers exited the ‘workfare’ scheme.

In the final analysis, Grayling knew that what mattered was retaining a work experience scheme. This was put into sharp focus by new research from Alderwood Education suggesting that, when it comes to recruiting, relevant work experience (47.5%) and readiness for work, (39.1%) are the aspects which will get candidates the job. The research reinforces what has been known for sometime: it is easier to get a job if you are already in a job – the CV matters.

The majority (70%) also suggested that employers aren’t adequately involved in developing training programmes, and a further 30% stated that candidates are less prepared for work than before the coalition came to power.

The government’s problem last week was clear.  Big employers were perceived to be profiteering from free labour, with individuals forced to work or risk losing benefits.

Not unsurprisingly, the employers proved agile in judging public mood and started to step away from the scheme. Tesco was seemingly cute enough this time to realise that by offering the choice of pay or benefits, they would be creating a positive scheme for both the individual and for their PR. Ministers, it appeared, were not so quick to learn from past experience, only agreeing to change the rules of the scheme at the eleventh hour.

The other interesting aspect is that when it comes to recruiting, only 4% believed employers rated education highly and only a fifth thought employers were concerned about literacy and numeracy. The research also reveals dissatisfaction with the way vocational careers are dealt with at school, with 88% of those questioned saying more should be done to promote vocational routes into employment.

This plays into a major problem for government – namely disinterest from the Department of Education in skills and the needs of a labour market.  The requirement for work-related learning in schools is being abolished, careers advice is in disarray and the apprenticeship guarantee has gone.  Therefore, it is possible to see that currently, incentives for schools are towards academic learning and the needs of universities, not those of employers.

There is a need to use this time of stagnant growth and rising unemployment to invest in skills. This will lead to a better match between employer needs and employee abilities when jobs return.

We also need a clear set of incentives for schools to improve vocational as well as academic skills.  Ken Baker’s University Technical Colleges should be expanded, FE Colleges integrated with 14-19 education and the all age careers service finally delivered in schools.

For adults we should see proper integration of skills and employment schemes.  As the Work Programme struggles under the burden of a lack of jobs, serious consideration should be given to how to inject skills funding into the scheme.

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• Sunday1Morning

   The problem is, of course, that those on vocational schemes seem to see those going the academic route as superior, rather than different, and the whole reason this mess has happened is because of their jealousy.

  Academia has been dumbed down, so that those who are really suited to vocational training can enter university and claim they have a degree.

• lynn68b

  Give companies tax breaks to take on paid apprentices, rather than putting the blame and responsibility for the problem on the unemployed for being unemployed during a recession.

• http://www.facebook.com/people/Mark-Laffan/625136540 Mark Laffan

  Still the endless focus on how one candidate makes themselves more employable than another, as if the question were one of how people could “compete” more effectively for jobs. Questions of education, skills and experience work when we address why Peter cannot get a job ahead of Paul. They do not begin to address the question of how we respond to the systematic stripping of labour from our economy over decades. 23 million or so unemployed in the EU. 5 candidates to every job in the UK. The answers are not in the workforce, or in the welfare system, or in “back to work” schemes, or in training. There is no supply end solution to this problem.

• http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=662304153 Jon Gratton

  Is it me or our our politicians totally ignorant of social  history?
  As early as 1970 we had so many options we were spoiled for choice .
  When you went to the careers officer he had at least 10 options for pupils to choose from you could get an apprenticeship in the dockyard you could join British Rail Marconi and many others .
  Successive governments and no investment these firms no longer offer these jobs

• Guest

  Grayling merely typifies the mindset of politicians of both parties over the last 20 years that the individual must continually adapt to the demands of “the market” irrespective of their needs, interests and aptitudes. Somehow it is the individual’s fault that he or she does not have the right experience, is not adept in the latest software, is not prepared to work unpaid for the benefit of shareholders of some multinational. There is in this country no fundamental respect for the citizen. People need to live in a civilised way: that means to be able to have somewhere to live, to be able to start a family, have free time, go on holiday, to have some  dignity in old age.
  We need to look at the problem at the macro level- there are simply not enough jobs. There are many reasons, decline of heavy industry (n.b. didn’t happen in the same way in Germany), computerization, mechanization, the belief that we could live off financial services, turning higher education into a market so that he have insufficient scientists and engineers and very few linguists. We need radical solutions but have politicians who pander to the popular press and polls, swallow any half-baked idea produced by a think-tank all living comfortably off and frankly representing no-one but themselves.

  And on the question of the decline in educational standards, we need to stop the continual interference by politicians.Let’s get ordinary parents and grandparents into the schools to teach children to read (English). Schools waste thousands on replacing computer systems which are a few years old.  Blood pressure going up -better stop now.