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SKILLS FOR TOMORROW
Whenever the increasingly important issue of skills is raised, most people
automatically think it means turning out better-trained students from
schools, colleges and universities. But as Mike Campbell explains,
75% of the people who will be in work in 2020 are already in
work today. And that means businesses have a major
role to play in making our region – and the country –
fit for competition.
Improved skills are increasingly the key to unlocking the
region’s potential and preparing ourselves for a turbulent
economic future. Better business, higher paid work,
more people in employment and a successful
regional economy - none of this will be possible
without a serious step change in the skill-levels, not
only of our young people, but of our already
existing workforce.
It is a little known fact that economic
wellbeing depends on just two things – the
number of people in work and what they
produce when they are there. Thus,
increasing our employment and our
productivity by just one percentage
point would net the South East economy
nearly £3 billion a year - and both
depend on improving workforce skills.
It is not just for the greater good,
either. Research we published just last
year shows that companies that don’t
train are more than twice as likely to go
out of business as those that do. And it’s
not just businesses that gain. The
average wage premium associated with
achieving higher level qualifications are
15% NVQ at level 2, a further 13% for level
3; another 28% for level 4; and yet another
23% for level 5. Skills pay.
Furthermore by 2020, nationally we expect the
proportion of jobs to be held by the highly qualified
to grow to more than 4 in 10 of all jobs – some 4.5
million more than today, while at the same time the
proportion of jobs held by those without qualifications is
expected to be as little as 20% - some 2 million less than
today.
The world is changing fast – in 10 years China will be bigger than the
combined economic weight of every single EU country put together. China
and India are producing four million graduates every year to the UK’s 250,000.
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