How many Beauticians does it take to change a lightbulb?
Britain’s most rapidly growing jobs are in the wrong sectors
The recession is over, we are told. At the same time government ministers are showing a keen interest in engineering for the first time in years. The mantra that manufacturing could once again be the growth engine for the UK economy is being whispered…softly. So everything’s going to be all right then? Not according to the UK’s first national Strategic Skills audit.
Over the last eight years the audit reveals that Britain, rather than building the industries of the future, has been what David Turner in the Financial Times describes as ‘navel gazing’. Apparently, the UK has been using its higher income to train armies of beauticians, town planners and psychologists – just the type of people we need to build a world-class manufacturing sector…!
We are surrounded by armies of conservation (what do they conserve?!) and, environmental protection officers, and town planners, who are beloved of all the population. At the same time as we have more of these ‘estimable’ people that we can shake a stick at, skilled manufacturing and factory floor jobs have been walloped by off-shoring. What this all adds up to is that the UK’s growth in highly skilled jobs has been one of the lowest in the organisation for economic co-operation and development since 2001. (Here we should also add that our investment in R&D holds a similar unenviable record).
What a surprise, eh!!! You only have to go out into the UK at large to get a feel for the present levels of skills we possess – a visit to your local supermarket when the automatic tills have failed (clueless!) is a basic but typical example. Yet we need an expensive audit to tell us that the UK economy is largely based on shopping, money lending and public employment. The message seems to have been: “Why worry about the skills that are needed for tomorrow when you can borrow enough today?”
Who knows; perhaps things will change for the better after the forthcoming election…but don’t hold your breath…. ‘Plus ça change’….