EDAS/SDS Labour Market Event - Key Points

On the 22 November EDAS and SDS held a joint event on "labour markets: from national to local". You can download the presentations here.

1. UK Perspective - Future Demand for Skills: A Foresight Approach by Dr Richard Garret

- Dr Garret's presentation was largley based on The National Strategic Skills Audit for England 2010.
- The Audit examined England’s existing & future skills needs identifying the sectors, occupations & skills on which they need to focus.
- Future skills needs were assessed on 3 things: examining drivers of change, a set of LM projections & detailed sectoral analysis.

Key messages

- Need to ensure that the right skills are supplied to meet a changing labour market.
- Demand for, & growth of, high skilled jobs needs to be stimulated. Evidence indicates that too few employers treat skills as a long term investment.
- Identified several important skills priorities including: management & leadership skills, professional skills,Technician & equivalent skills, intermediate vocational skills & customer service & employability skills.
- The audit provided a framework for skills mismatches. Amongst other things, it shows the balance between demand & supply in the LM.
- Key elements of mismatch include: skill shortages, unemployment, skill gaps and migration
- Looking to the future the report outlined the key drivers of change, specifically how demand for skills is likely to change due to labour market adjustments and structural changes.
- 7 key drivers of change were highlighted: regulation & multi-level governance, demography, environment, economics and globalisation, technology, values & identities and consumer demand.
- Dr Garret also mentioned another key strand of work for the UKCES - “Ambition 2020: World Class Skills & Jobs”- which is an annual assessment of our (UK) “progress towards becoming world class in productivity, employment and skills be 2020”.