Beyond Employability

What does the future hold for employment and skills? Victoria Winckler highlights the implications of forecasts about Wales in 2020.

On any measure, the forecasts for the Welsh economy and jobs market to 2020 are depressing. While there is some good news, in that Price Waterhouse Coopers forecast some growth for Wales, of around 1 per cent increase in GVA a year to 2017, the bad news is that most other parts of the UK are forecast to have greater growth – so the effect is that the gap between Wales and most of the rest of the UK will widen.

In terms of jobs, the forecasts are similar to those for the economy – some growth, but with the rate of growth in Wales being at the bottom of the league table along with the North East of England and Northern Ireland.  This is not to say that there will be no new jobs: the UK Commission on Employment and Skills forecasts about 35,000 new jobs from now to 2020, as well as many more job opportunities created as people retire.

Important though the numbers are, there are significant shifts in the types of jobs too.  The number of professional and managerial occupations is expected to increase – by 2020 they could account for 40% of all jobs. In contrast the number of semi- and unskilled jobs is forecast to decrease – for example more than one in ten today’s of operatives jobs is forecast to disappear by 2020.

For many, the days of a reasonably secure job, with regular hours and pay, have been replaced with new ways of working.  The part time boom is very likely to continue so that by 2022, nearly one in three people in work will be part time.  Temporary work, self-employment and no-guaranteed-hours or variable hours contracts, have all increased considerably and there is every likelihood that this trend will continue.

What about the supply of people and skills?

The picture here is mixed too. Already there are about 225,000 people in Wales who want a job but do not have one, as well as people who are in work but want more hours or higher skilled jobs. That figure suddenly makes the 35,000 new jobs forecast look woefully inadequate.

For school leavers, the targets are for attainment and qualifications levels to improve by 2020.  However, the gap with England is almost certain to persist and there will still be a large number of young people leaving school without 5 good GCSEs.  For adults, there is the prospect of a gradual improvement in qualifications as older people with no qualifications leave the workforce and the numbers with degree-level qualifications increases.

This combination of a modest forecast growth in employment, mainly in professional and managerial roles, coupled with a lot of people who are looking for work or are under-employed, raises some big challenges.

1. Filling Professional and Managerial Jobs

We have seen that the number of professional and managerial jobs is forecast to rise. Who is going to fill those jobs? Are we creating a pipeline of skilled and qualified people to occupy the jobs forecast to be created?

2. Coping with the contraction of semi- and unskilled jobs and worsening conditions

We have seen that the number of semi- and unskilled jobs is forecast to contract – around 1 in 10 will disappear. Yes there will be opportunities arising from ‘replacement’ but are they enough? In some parts of Wales these are an important part of the labour market so their contraction will be felt keenly.

And what should be done about the worsening of conditions in these jobs?

3. The limits of the ‘employability agenda’

And last, but not least, what do we do about the elephant in the room – the shortfall in the number of jobs?  The truth is that there is a limit to how much making people ‘job ready’ or employable will address this fundamental problem.  ‘Employabiilty’ cannot alone solve the underlying mismatch of numbers.

The debate about employability and skills needs to rise to these challenges if by 2020 the future is to be brighter than today.

Victoria Winckler is Director of the Bevan Foundation. This article is an edited version of the speech she is giving to the NIACE / Inclusion conference on Employability and Skills 2015 on 3rd November 2015.

The report ‘The Shape of Wales to Come’ is available here.