London Employment and Skills

1
London Employment and Skills
Haringey in the wider context
Paul HeadPrincipal of the College of NorthEast
London(CONEL)Advisor to the London Skills and
Employment Board(LSEB)20 April 2007
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The national challenge on Skills and Employment

• Skills
• 20th out of the 30 Organisation for Economic
  co-operation and development (OECD) Counties for
  participation in education and training post 16
• 18th for proportion of workforce with Level 2
  Skills, i.e. equivalent to good secondary school
  leaving standard
• Leitch report on World Class Skills target is
  that 90 of workforce should be at a minimum of
  Level 2 by 2020, 18th to top 3

3
The national challenge on Skills and Employment

• Employment
• In last 10 years employment up by 2.5million,
  claimant unemployed down to 670,000, lowest rate
  since the 1970s. Number of working age people
  in employment close to highest ever level at
  74.5, and increase of 1.8 in ten years.
• Freud Report on the future of Welfare to Work
  target is that it should be 80
• Big UK challenges to a competitive economy in the
  global economy

4
The London Picture

• Londons economy is a high skill, productive
  economy that depends on the talent that it
  attracts from around the globe, the rest of the
  UK and London residents. It has very few skill
  gaps.
• Since Londons global competitiveness depends on
  the global reach of its labour market this must
  be maintained.
• But too many residents and newcomers are failing
  to compete - resulting in low employment rates,
  high child poverty and a huge social security
  bill.

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The London Picture

• The beneficiaries of Londons global labour
  market should jointly shoulder the burden of
  solving Londons problems.
• This will be a joint endeavour between public
  sector, businesses and communities to achieve a
  better deal for London. No one sector can solve
  the problems on their own.

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Skills

• London's high skilled sectors projected to grow,
  low skilled set to decline
• Londons workforce is already well qualified.
• However a fifth of population do not have English
  as their first language, of those not engaged in
  employment a high proportion do not have basic
  functional literacy and numeracy and are at skill
  levels below Level 2

7
Work

• Jobs concentrated in the centre of London,
  opportunities and challenges for other parts of
  London
• labour to fill these opportunities will be
  imported from new areas and re-cycled from
  existing employment, the challenge is to bring in
  those currently not engaged in employment
• Tackling barriers to employment and those groups
  and individuals furthest from employment
• Sustainable employment for the individual and the
  employer.

8
Worklessness

• London meets its employment and skills needs but
  significant numbers of Londoners are excluded.
• UK Employment rate 74.5
• London Employment Rate 69.2
• To reach the UK average an additional 270,000
  working age residents need to be in employment
• London has 1.5million workless working age
  residents, 313,000 unemployed, 1.2 million
  economically inactive of whom 370,000 state they
  would like to have a job.

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London is a complete outlier the highest
productivity but the lowest employment rates in
England
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2012

• 2012 offers a unique opportunity to build a
  consensus of purpose around the employment and
  skills strategy
• This has to be about more than jobs for or at the
  Olympics
• Has to address long term sustainability in
  employment and skills

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Key Issues for London

• Raising Skills Levels towards higher level skills
• Employment trend towards services, 1 million new
  service jobs by 2025
• Employers importing skills into London from UK
  and abroad, a global market for higher level
  skills
• London has a highly skilled workforce compared to
  UK but not to international competitors
• 87 of Londoners with Level 4 qualifications in
  work

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Key Issues for London

• 2. Tackling Worklessness, 1.1 Million
• London has the lowest employment rate in the UK
• London has a high rate of job vacancies
• One third of workless have no qualifications
• 43 of workforce with no qualifications in work
• Multiple barriers to work

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LEST

• Employer Leadership
• Linking people work and training more effectively
• Communications and engagement with individuals

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LEST

• 2012 Information and opportunities
• Employer Accord
• Public Sector Impact
• Pre work Support / Pre volunteering
• Guidance and Brokerage
• Relevant Learning and experience
• Reaching out groups farthest from employment

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Employment Accord approach

• London Employment and Skills Task Force for 2012
  launched the London 2012 Employer Accord using
  the forthcoming Olympics as a catalyst to boost
  London's skills and employment base as a legacy
  from 2012.
• For example the local Haringey Guarantee builds
  on existing and emerging practice across London,
  new approaches needed to tackle the scale of the
  skills and employment challenge facing London and
  Haringey through employer led commitment

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Employment Guarantee approach

• The LEST approach is about bringing large
  employers in London together to tackle the skills
  and employment needs of London.
• Haringey Guarantee a crucial scalable initiative
  to tackle employment and skills
• Key roles for volunteering and work experience
  (for young and adults)
• Sustainability of employment and skills outcomes
  are key.