Age, skills and equity: post Leitch

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Age, skills and equity post Leitch

• Professor Stephen McNair
• Director CROW - NIACE

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The demography

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Projected change in age groups 2004-2020
Government Actuarys Department
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The shape of the workforce

• Fertility 1.7, biased to lower socio-economic
  groups
• Life expectancy rising
• Retirement ages rising towards 65
• Migration net inwards 150,000 p.a. (?)
• Regional distribution concentration on London
  South East
• Sectoral mix from manufacturing to services
  (employment not production)
• The hourglass workforce all top and bottom

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Leitch a radical vision?

• Taking adult learning seriously?
• A demand driven system planning doesnt work
• Brokering and guidance central
• How to get from here to there?
• Who will get lost?

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Radical change the EU view

• Our current policies are not viable in the long
  term, in that they do not address the expected
  decrease in the active population and the
  prospect of slippage in the public finances. The
  source of the problem is not higher life
  expectancy as such, rather it is the inability of
  current policies to adapt to the new demographic
  order and the reluctance of businesses and
  citizens to change their expectations and
  attitudes
• EU (2006) The demographic future of Europe from
  challenge to opportunity

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Leitch an adequate response?

• These changes have important implications for
  the UK economy. Over 70 per cent of the 2020
  working age population are already over the age
  of 16. In the past, structural change was
  facilitated by a flow into expanding industries
  of young people with more relevant skills and the
  flow out of declining industries by older people
  leaving the workforce. A strengthening flow of
  skilled young people is essential for improving
  the UKs prosperity. However, as the population
  ages and working lives lengthen, adult workers
  are more likely to have to update their skills to
  move into new sectors or adapt to new
  technologies.

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Failing to act the risk

• The UK slipping further down the international
  economic league tables
• Competitiveness and profitability reducing
• Unemployment rising, jobs lost to other countries
• Migration and social tensions increasing
• Tax yields falling and public services cut back
• Spiralling decline

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Acting the prize

• World class skills
• Improved economic performance 80bn prize
• UK attracting higher inward investment and
  additional jobs
• Functional illiteracy and innumeracy largely
  overcome, with corresponding improvements in
  health and crime figures
• Higher skills contributing to a higher standard
  of living for all

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Some policy tensions

• The relationship of economic and non-economic
• Raising the floor- social inclusion
• Raising the ceiling - Returns to level 2
  qualifications
• World class performance
• The role of Government market failure and
  market maker
• High level skills
• Flexible skills transfer and metaskills

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The vision is not sufficiently dynamic

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The future of work three alternative
perspectives

• Global how is work moving around the world?
• Human capital how is is built, maintained and
  destroyed?
• Longitudinal how is work distributed across the
  lifecourse?

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Perspective 1Globalisation the unstable base

• How is work moving around the world?
• Moving to meet market needs elsewhere
• Chasing lower costs
• Some work is returning
• Some cannot be moved
• Inertia

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Perspective 2Human capital a tender plant

• Built by learning not necessarily formal
• Decays by forgetting and obsolescence
• Maintained by use and encouragement
• Destroyed by bad management demotivates,
  discriminates and excludes

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Perspective 3Longitudinal changing aspirations

• What is career progression?
• Later labour market entry, and long induction
  period
• Working life is extending
• The right to stay -default retirement age at 65
• People like work intrinsic and social rewards
• People need work - financial pressures
• Changing expectations
• Employers are responding - in some sectors
• Labour market participation is rising 1M over
  50s since 1997
• But age discrimination is widespread 30-90
• Training declines (why? and is it relevant?)

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Five kinds of transition

• Winding down
• Stepping down
• Time out
• Helping hands
• Easing down
• (BT)

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The older workforce

• Flexibility and work-life balance caring and
  life issues
• Four kinds of older worker
• Mainstream discrimination and updating
• Specialist older roles mentoring, older
  technologies, times of day
• Contingent workforce high skill self
  management
• Contingent workforce low skill upskilling,
  self management

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Evaluating Leitch

• Will it extend productive working life?
• Will it improve the distribution of work across
  the lifecourse?
• Will it increase integration of excluded groups
  migrants, older, disabled, ethnic minorities?
• Will the focus on formal qualifications get in
  the way of relevant learning?
• Will we really get an informed, demand led
  market, or will implementation strategies
  undermine the principles?

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www.niace.org.ukwww.olderworkforce.org.uk