Last night many senior executives and their guests, most from the technology industry, attended the Prince’s Trust Leadership Group Gala Dinner at the Tower. Sponsored by EMC, the event raised much needed funds to help disadvantaged young people in the UK.
The need for the work of the Prince’s Trust was brought home yesterday with news that that the number of unemployed 16-24 year olds had risen to 1.02m in the last quarter. This is the highest since records began in the 1990s and at over 20% is, in my view, a disaster. We are breeding a whole generation who do not know the world of work.
I was also alarmed by news that the number of foreign born workers actually increased by 181,000 in the period against a reduction of 311,000 in UK born workers. In the IT industry in particular there is a preference for employing experienced staff from overseas over training our own.
My career in IT would never have happened had I not been given an entry level IT job back in 1966. However over the last ten years, in particular, the number of those entry level jobs has been slashed. This means that the number of skilled IT works with 5-10 years experience has reduced dramatically so that most IT employers complain of acute shortages of skilled staff.
For young people generally, the UK must put priority on creating jobs. Many of these will have to be unskilled -just as there were jobs in the fields, factories and ‘down the mines’ in the 1950s/60s.
In our own IT sector, we MUST put much greater emphasis on the creation of entry-level jobs. There are good news stories her – see my Britain Works post last month on what Microsoft UK is doing here. But it just scratches the surface of the problem. The Government should introduce major incentives for all entry-level apprentices – say paying the equivalent of unemployment benefit to the employer for the first 6 months with a condition that the employee must be in job after a year.
The consequences of ignoring the problem are frightening. It must be addressed – and quickly.