At times like this I am compelled to write to the papers, phone into radio stations and engage in intensive debate with whoever will listen about the key points relating to ‘the rising unemployment’
Firstly, the real reason we now hear about the rising unemployment is that politicians recognise that it is becoming an issue once again, alongside the recession, party politics and the usual media stories about scrounging by the state benefits fraudsters i.e. the unemployed!
Unemployment is never usually a major issue for the public at large because it affects at most, 1 in 10 of the working population. It may be that in areas like the east end of Glasgow the general unemployment figure is 30%, but the general population do not really care because- ‘Hey Ho –we don’t live there’
I have worked with employment programmes for more than 30 years; created new programmes, written European funded programmes, taught on them, delivered training for trainers and the burning issue as far as I can determine after all this is Employability for everyone in our communities and not just unemployment statistics.
My definition of Employability (detailed later) is possession of ‘the skills required to Access, Achieve, Progress and Sustain in employment’. These have very little currency in our schools, colleges and universities today –if they did then our young people would clearly be moving on into their chosen careers or working in areas they trained in or not accounting for 26% youth unemployment!
In a 2010 survey of 7000 businesses by the British Chambers of Commerce, members were asked how confident they were in hiring from our universities.
Only 45% expressed high confidence in the graduates they met.
Members felt that funding in our Higher and Further Education sectors followed the interests of the learner and not the needs of the economy.
There is a simple reason for this –it is how these institutions draw down their government funding. Providing courses for students who are ill advised and who have little or no input for a career – College & University courses are funded by starts, attendance, achievement and completion and nothing about employment.
Employers want new employees with literacy/numeric skills, present well, communicate, are willing to learn, problem solve, have good timekeeping etc and say if they are provided with these ‘employability’ skills then they can provide the rest, with a little assistance from SDS and the government for training.
Secondly, the old chestnut regarding the common misapprehension that ‘there are no jobs out there’ has got to be cleared up once and for all.
There are jobs out there and we find them and get our clients into them every day of the year. In fact we recently celebrated 500 jobs in 500 days at our facility in East Kilbride –EK Works.
The truth with this approach to employability is that we are preparing people in all the areas of employability and so they are able to sell themselves and get to the top of the queue for the jobs.
Job opportunities which are displayed in the Job Centre account for around 10% of those available – or 30% of the total jobs available are advertised. Like the iceberg –the largest number of job opportunities lies beneath the surface. They are to be found on cards in shop windows, newspaper articles, agency listings, gossip from the workplace, neighbours leaving jobs to take up new ones, word of mouth, recruitment agencies, new company start ups, etc
Employability skills training teaches people how to find these “hidden jobs” and how to progress up the ladder once they achieve their new job.
Thirdly, there is Job Creation.
Of all the 2000 clients we have helped into employment in the past 3 years, the number who progress into and towards employment, 80 % approximately go into existing jobs but 20% move into new jobs or job which has been created for them.
We promote this by setting up a variety of placement opportunities which allow us to ‘job match’ the client with an employer. We do this currently for almost 500 young people who move onto a subsidised job for 6 months –with results of 91% sustained at 3 months and 81% sustained at 12 months
Youth Unemployment is at critical levels in the 3rd quarter of 2011 with the number of 16-24 year olds looking for work now passed the 1million mark. At 1.02 million the figure is the worst since I remember in the 1980’s and now includes 286,000 students in fulltime education seeking work to supplement their incomes
Even worse is the UK figure for those Not in Employment Education or Training (NEET) which is at 1.16 million or 1/5th of their age group
The Scottish figure is currently 36000, or 13.7% of 16-19 year olds
Why does the Government in Westminster always look for new programmes, new techniques and ideas when the tried and tested ones have worked so well in the past?
Isn’t it time we concentrated on a ‘back to basics’ approach and set employment and enterprise at the heart of all our education strategies?
How we learn, basic skills and employability coupled with respect for all technical training can lead to a society where ‘I’m just a….’ no longer prevails.
Colleges are now all academic institutions and promote Higher National Certificates and Diplomas with an emphasis on articulation with Universities instead of the valuable Technical Colleges of the past.
Joblessness among the young is rising dramatically across the European Union and the UK rate is close to the average of the 27 member states at 21.4%. The situation in some other countries is more serious; Spain 48%, Greece 43.5%, Italy 29.3%. But in Germany the youth unemployment is 9%
Europe’s greatest economic power, Germany has led the way in youth training with its dual education system model, which combines highly regulated apprenticeships in the private sector with vocational training in colleges.
Employers are locked into training contracts and cannot exploit apprentices by paying low wages for minimal instruction. German qualifications and employees are highly regarded and mush sought after across Europe.
2 years ago the Scottish Government announced 7,800 new Modern Apprenticeship places for Scotland. This sounds good for employers and trainees alike but there are huge gaps in the reality of the situation, which are obviously not apparent to the Scottish Government, Labour politicians who have put great emphasis on increased numbers of MA’s and the media observers who are all to happy to print the party line that this is having a dramatic impact on our young people, it is not.
Nowadays, Modern Apprenticeships are for young people (and now Adult apprenticeships) who are EMPLOYED!!
In addition to the Modern Apprenticeship madness, the Leader of Glasgow City Council has pledged an offer of a MA place to all school leavers who fail to secure progression to education or employment – again, where is he going to find the companies which will employ the 1,000’s of young people on the MA’s? There is little or no incentive for employers to employ these 1000’s of young people, certainly not the training funding, which is managed by large training companies, the employer rarely gets to see it.
Some of the bigger MA programmes are targeted at 3 main areas, which account for 35% of all young people on an MA in Scotland.
SDS Report 2010 - 2011(In Training at 21/03/2011)
Industry Starts In Trng Achieved £ per MA
Construction 2,046 5799 65% £7,500**
Engineering 943 3,541 80% £9,000**
Vehicle Maint. & Repair 907 2,089 65% £7,500**
(only 66 were female clients)
I would be a bigger fan of MA’s if we could find a way to ensure 100% achievement, but the sad reality is that at least 30% won’t achieve their qualification, for whatever reason – this is a tremendous waste of public money.
Are there jobs available for 11,429 young people in these industries? What happens to the 30% who do not complete their MA? Is it cost effective to pay £7,500 - £9,000 per person for this training?
The conclusion I have to reach is that we are funding policies which were fine in decades past when employers wanted financial support in training young apprentices but today I find that they want trainees who are employable first and who can be trained on the job secondly – not the other way around.
Would we not be better assigning funding on this scale to securing basic employability skills for all our young people in order that they can enter employment, sustain the job and then progress onto Modern Apprenticeships, further education and industry specific training courses?
I’m speaking about Incentivising Small, Medium Sized Enterprises, who would like to recruit a young person but need actual monetary support to do so. Do this on a large scale, such as in South Lanarkshire (Youth Jobs Fund) and you begin to make a sizeable dent in the increasing problem of youth unemployment.
Employability is all about the 4 stages – the skills required to Access, Achieve, Sustain and Progress in employment – and, in addition to these, I believe that we need to add Respect.
• It is respect for one’s own aspirations and success.
• It is a respect won from application, motivation and dedication.
• It is respect from the management, staff and customers with whom we work.
Scotland has a greater number of young people who are not in employment, education and training which was referred to as the Not in Employment Education or Training.
This has changed now with the drive for ‘political correctness’ to become defined as the More Choices More Chances group.
But by changing the name it has not been enough to stop the drift of increasing numbers of young people languishing in Scottish communities with no opportunities of finding work and little chance of this improving over the next 10 years.
This figure has risen from 16% of the numbers not securing any progression from schools into employment, education or training and, in some areas, can reach almost 50% of school leavers.
In one area where we worked recently, the resulting action from the local authority was to close the school and move the children to other schools.
The costs calculated to taxpayers for supporting these young people, including benefits and their failure to contribute taxes is £3.5 billion pounds
Of the 60,000 young people leaving school, around 30% went on to University and 25% on to Further Education Colleges – 25% found work.
This is perhaps hardly surprising when you consider that only 25% of young people leave school to go into jobs when they are 16. They are likely to be among the lowest achievers. More than half of 18-year-olds go on to higher education these days, so even those who leave school to enter the workforce at 18 are likely to be among the lower achievers.
Priority has to be given to the 50% of all young people leaving school to help improve basic skills, achieve qualifications and progress into technical careers with respect for these as fundamental roles within our communities.
In addition to the Smith Group Report, which again highlighted the politicians fixation on Apprenticeships, I would make a couple of recommendations, which I believe will begin to turn the tide against youth unemployment and towards supporting Employability Development for all of Scotland’s people;
1. A move to employer led courses at universities and colleges
2. Develop a 2 stream path at our high schools, universities and colleges i.e. academic and vocational
3. fund higher and further education on performance indicators which include employability, sustained employment, employment in the areas where students secure qualifications, progression within employment, enterprise & self employment
4. Embed realistic employability training throughout secondary education
5. Strip funding from failing training providers, who are being funded to achieve failure by the government and disassociate from employers who have only a financial interest at the heart of Apprenticeship delivery
6. Move funding towards SME companies who want to employ but do not need high level training or who can provide “on the job training”
7. Ensure that Local Authorities have assigned budgets to ensure employability development programmes for their residents
8. Promote the use of employer subsidy, direct financial assistance and generate interest in youth employment as a positive solution to company need
9. Bad news sells – we need a media that promotes the ideals of good citizenship and the real desire of young people to find employment and to highlight the good news this will generate.
10. Deliver on the promises of growth and envision a Scotland where young people are not left to rot on the shelf, but become the driving force behind the countries economic recovery
11. Attach Incentive Funding to Young people as they leave school, so that agencies that work with them to help them towards employment can use this incentive to attract employers and ensure the young person has the best possible chance of employment.
The future does not look bright for our young people if we do not act now and act decisively.
Projections for the next 10 years include converting part time workers into full time posts; fewer private sector jobs created, fewer public sector jobs, more people staying in work past their retirement date and more senior citizens remaining in employment for much longer periods.
All this makes the efforts being undertaken for youth employment appear superficial and short term.

