Elizabeth Gerard, Deputy Director, Learning and Work Institute
This year’s Employability Day theme, ‘Employment Support for Every Citizen’, reflects that, despite the significant strides we’ve made, millions of people in the UK want to work but can’t access employment opportunities.
A quick look at this week’s labour market figures reiterates the need to continue the focus on employability. The recent figures on young people (aged 16-24) who were not in education, employment or training (NEET) for the May to July 2024 quarter, showed that the number of NEET young people has increased from 13.0% to 14.2%. While there have been some minor improvements in key measures in the latest quarter, with both the employment rate increasing and the economically inactive rate falling, the employment picture varies across the country. This varying picture, which is even greater at sub-regional level, shows the importance of tackling inequalities so everyone has a fair chance in life wherever they live.
Too much employment support is currently focused on the relatively small number of unemployed people, with the main goal being getting people off benefits quickly, and with little consideration of the quality of the work they go into. At L&W, we believe that everyone who wants to work should be able to get help. Getting more people into employment, including the 1.8 million economically inactive people who want to work, will not just provide individuals and their families with the financial stability and improved wellbeing that comes with being in paid work; it could also boost economic growth by £25 billion per year.
Broader provision of employment support is something we have long called for, most recently in our 2022 report on full employment and in our pre-election briefing Aiming high: An 80% employment rate and how to deliver it. It is heartening to see this mantel taken up by the new government, who have adopted our recommendation of a target for the country to reach an 80 per cent employment rate. To get there, we want to see employment support expanded to anyone who wants to work and could benefit from support. Only one in ten out-of-work disabled people and older people get help to find work each year, yet two in ten want to work.
An 80 per cent employment rate will require a strong focus on employability at the local and national level.
At the local level we know the importance of integration of employment, health and skills support, and have highlighted this in our work, such as with the Central London Forward Integration Hub. We’ve also published information on what works for key elements of employability, such as supporting adult learners to gain basic skills (such as literacy and numeracy).
At the national level the new government has recently announced its Back to Work Plan. Secretary of State, Liz Kendall, has set out the three pillars of the Government’s Back to Work Plan, which includes:
The announcement of a youth guarantee is a positive step and something that L&W has previously called for. To ensure the success of the programme this needs to have a focus on proactively supporting young people in education who are at high risk of becoming NEET, and have a strong commitment at the ministerial level with a new joint ministerial brief between the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education to ensure accountability.
While we wait to see more detail on how the Government intends to achieve the aims set out in the three pillars, we hope the approach will involve a greater focus on working with employers on job design, recruitment and job retention.
Ultimately, while the government has stated it will seek “employment opportunity unleashed for all”, we want to see integrated employment support unleashed for all as well.