Britain’s Skills Shortage – A Crisis Waiting to Happen?
Posted by David Mowat, MP for Warrington South, at 15:53, Thu 2 September 2010:
As an Engineering graduate myself and one of an alarmingly small number of MPs with a Scientific or Engineering background, I am always keen to do what I can to promote the cause.
Consider this: The Office for Budget Responsibility (the new independent forecasting body) recently announced that as a result of the budget measures that have so far been announced, the Public Sector in the North West will shed some 70,000 jobs, but that the Private Sector in the region will create 200,000 new jobs, by 2015.
To put that into context, that means in the next 5 years, all 75 parliamentary constituencies in the North West must create 2,667 jobs each. If we are to do that at the same time as rebalancing our economy away from financial services, we will need more engineers. There are a number of industries in which the North West excels: Defence, Advanced Manufacturing and Nuclear to name but a few. These are the industries that need to drive future economic growth, but we are poorly placed to take advantage of that growth.
25 years ago, Britain produced some 20,000 engineering graduates every year. That figure has barely risen in a quarter of a century, yet the number of people who attend university has increased five-fold since then. Successive governments (of both colours) have failed to address this imbalance.
Why does this matter? Because if big industrial powerhouses like BAE systems or AstraZeneca are to grow in the next 5 years, the extra jobs they create could be taken by people from other parts of the country, or abroad and not by people from the North West.
This is already happening. Oil giant Shell has to recruit its engineers from Russia and when the National Grid needed to make changes to our transmission and power engineering systems across the grid recently, they had to go hunting for their engineers in – wait for it – Zimbabwe! France and Germany already produce 50% more engineers per year than we do. In India and China it is many times more.
Creating jobs can only help the North West and Warrington if those jobs are taken up by people from the region. The government needs to act swiftly to address this skills shortage in order to prevent a “lost generation” of graduates, with good academic qualifications, but without the necessary skills needed to succeed.
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Posted by David Mowat, 15:59, Thu 2 September 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #
I spoke recently about this subject in a Parliamentary debate. You can read a transcript of my speech or watch it at http://www.davidmowat.org/change-britain_ZWestminster%20Hall%20Debates.htm
Posted by Mike Ranson, 16:25, Thu 2 September 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #
You're not wrong. But the problem has never been getting students into technical subjects - the problem has been in providing for them a future upon qualification. Why take an engineering or science degree when you have almost no prospect of finding work locally? I know many graduates with "real" degrees (as opposed to micky mouse media degrees) who ended up in call centres or sales and marketing, whilst media degree graduates were short-listed for the best jobs.
This isn't just employer bias at work, with employers choosing business graduates because they already have office skills, rather than science graduates who need some training. This is because we've become a service industry culture and we don't "make stuff" any more. We buy it from abroad instead, from countries with whom our manufacturing can never hope to compete on cost. The so-called knowledge economy never happened. India, whom many regard as a third world country, a nation in which a large fraction of the population remains functionally illiterate and resides in houses made of mud, nevertheless has stolen the march on the knowledge economy even to the point of exporting business, IT and yes, science and engineering graduates to the UK!
I graduated with an honours degree in biology in 2005 and haven't worked a day in a technical job since. There's nothing available in the North West for a science graduate. You either go South and try your luck in London or go abroad... or give up and get a soft job, instead.
Posted by William Aitken Brotherston, 18:11, Thu 2 September 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #
In an echo of what Mike Ranson said, the lack of engineering skills exists at all levels. A case in point. A few years ago I thought to set up a training scheme for service engineers. The trigger was a friend of mine lamenting the lack of skill in lift maintenance. The service companies were repeatedly replacing large expensive components because the people sent to diagnose the faults did not know what they were doing. My pitch was that I would train the lift companies' personnel to fault find in a logical manner and the result would be much reduced spare part expenditiure. No-one was interested. The reason given was that if company A trained someone he would be enticed away by company B. So they were not interested in training. It might be that the very large companies are interested in training and education but they are not the ones who will provide the bulk of the jobs. The SMEs are the ones who will do that and they appear, in one sector at least, not to be interested.
Aitken Brotherston, Cheshire
Posted by m bradley, 18:42, Fri 3 September 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #
I sent a message regarding prisoners, not about this issue that has been sent to me by e.mail as i presume is a reply to the e.mail i sent and got no reply,and informed the DID YOU GET A REPLY FROM YOUR MP. I WILL ASK AGAIN WHY DO PRISONERS GET UNEMPLOYMENT BENIFITS. As to the issue regarding engineers if i remember rightly it was the Tory`s who cut back on apprenticeship's in the 1970/80.and in the present day men/woman who gain good results in 6th form/higher education can not afford to go to university, unlike your generation who got it all paid for by the then education system.
Posted by leanne keavey, 21:04, Fri 3 September 2010: (Is this post abusive?) #
OK then Mr Mowat - as a civil servant who is fully expecting to be made redundant within the next year, i would like to go on an engineering course. Just out of interest, who would pay for my mortgage, childcare, bills etc whilst i return (yes return, I already have 1 degree), to full time study.
I am not a high level civil servant, I manage 110 staff yet earn £24k a year, i don't have the finances to go back to university & thanks to new leglisation will recieve little in redundancy payments.
So i really rather think you are clutching at straws with this apparant solution to public sector job losses - is hasnt eased my concerns about where i will get a job from in the near future.