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I was, of course, delighted to read this morning that EY were to take on 700 graduates, 500 undergraduates and 150 sixth formers over the next month. Clearly many of these will be tech-related too. See One third new EY hires will be students.
As most readers know, I have a ‘passion’ for the creation of entry-level jobs. A 20%+ unemployment rate amongst our 16-24 year olds is a ticking time bomb. We’ll all pay dearly if we ignore it. I am as passionate about jobs for graduates as I am for jobs for disadvantaged youngsters with no qualifications.
Today, Ed Milliband announced a new Labour Party policy whereby any employer of more than 50 staff who wants to bring in a worker from outside the EU would have to train an apprentice. The policy got roundly ridiculed. Indeed, it sounds poorly formulated and I doubt we will ever hear of it again – yet alone see it enacted. But at least the objective was laudable.
About a decade ago, regulations were changed to mandate reporting of political and charitable donations in R&As. It didn’t ban political donations or mandate charitable acts. But the first was considered ‘undesirable’ and the latter ‘desirable’. Indeed it was found that ‘doing good was good for business’ and corporate charitable giving has since soared as political donations from companies has declined.
We need to do the same with job creation. The tendering process for every HMGovt contract should ask about entry-level job creation. All companies should be ’encouraged’ to publicise their job creation activities in their Annual accounts. Major suppliers should ask about/encourage job creation in their supply chain. The media should report on it often and should chastise the laggards.
Our own efforts to research this area shows beyond reasonable doubt that there is a huge variation amongst the tech leaders operating in the UK. UK-HQed companies lead the field – which is why we are saddened when we report the acquisition of leaders in high level UK job creation like Logica and Autonomy. Firms like EY, and in particular, Accenture, also score very highly; albeit at the very top of the skill ladder. These firms tend to ‘think’ on a national level even if they are ‘global’. The very worst are the Indian players. Minor rounding would put their contribution to UK entry level jobs at zero even though they are responsible for over 10% of UK SITS revenues.
I contend that offshoring has been one of the major reasons for the shortfall in UK entry-level jobs over the last decade. Indeed, still is. We can’t create much needed IT people with 3+ years experience – the major reason for UK work visa requests – overnight. But if we do start training now the situation could be very different in 5 years time.
I don’t think we need cumbersome legislation and bureaucracy. We just need to shame companies into action and reward the ‘good guys’. We are always happy to report on entry level job creation in Hotviews. If any players – particularly the Indians - want to announce schemes to recruit and train 100+ entry-level IT people in the UK, we’ll cover it (but please don’t fob us off with announcements of half a dozen token jobs).
