NEWSDESK
drain TRADER
Covid’s lost generation
Industry and unions call for emergency measures to save apprenticeships and provide re-skilling and retraining to secure skills essential for UK recovery.
Apprenticeship opportunities disappearing against backdrop of COVID redundancies with fears of lost generation.
• A National Skills Taskforcemust be established to coordinate local initiatives and create a national structure to redeploy skilledworkers and retrain others facing or livingwith redundancy
• Extend lifetime of apprenticeship levy funds from24 to 36months tomaintain levels of apprenticeship opportunities in the sector
• Provide additional protections for apprentices currently in training to stop thembeingmade redundant andmake availablemodular and short-term training to complete their training
• Allowlevy paying companies to use their levy funds to protect employment and for future training needs
• Make direct emergency apprenticeship grants available to non-levy paying companies
•
Increase the amount of levy funds an employer can spent on an apprentice to reflect the real cost of training in the manufacturing sector
Britain’smanufacturers, leading unions, skills champions and industry bodies are calling today on the Government to take urgent action to safeguard the skills the country’s economy needs nowand in the future by acting to save the country’s apprenticeships and reskill, retrain and redeploy the expertise of those skilledworkersmade redundant as a result of COVID.
Against the current backdrop ofmass lay-offs on a scale unseen since the 1980s, the
manufacturing sector faces a loss of skills, jobs and apprentices thatwithout help,will not return to levels seen before COVID for years to come. Apprenticeships, long seen by the sector as the best route to secure invaluable skills, are becoming unaffordable as businesses struggle for survival. InMay, the number of starts for 16-18-year-olds dropped 79%year on year,with numbers set to dwindle even further. And a third of manufacturers are cancelling or putting their apprenticeship training on hold due to financial pressure fromCovid.
Make UK, Unite, the Trade Union Congress, the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions, engineering skills champions Enginuity and Cogent alongside other leading industry stakeholders from sectors including aerospace, food and drink, automotive, chemicals and defence have joined forces towrite to the Secretary of State for Education GavinWilliamson, outlining the immediate and direct action needed to safeguard Britain’s skills, young people and themanufacturing sector as awhole.
A National Skills taskforcemust be set up at speed involving the trade unions and other key stakeholders to ensure vitals skills and skilledworkers are retained and redeployed within industry. The taskforce shouldwork to identify opportunitieswhereworkers’ skills are in demand,whether inmanufacturing or other sectors and develop a flagship upskilling programme to support employers in the development of newdigital and ‘green’ skills needed for a future proofed economy.
This shouldwork alongside a nationally agreed programme forworkerswho already have the necessary basic skills to reskill them into newgrowth areas ofwork and take advantage of newjobs thatwill be required as companies look towork differently,
52 drain TRADER | October 2020 |
www.draintraderltd.com AnnWatson, CEOof Enginuity
bringing their supply chains closer to home and enter newmarkets.
Apprentices, the skilledworkers of the future, must also be protected throughmore flexible use of levy funds paid by companies. Governmentmust extend the lifetime of funds from24 to 36months to allow apprentices the chance to finish their courses.
The levy should also be further adapted to allowit to be used for short termretraining and reskilling, alongside the introduction of modular learning to speed apprentices through training. Flex should be applied allowing levy-paying companies to use their levy funds to protect employment,while non-levy companies should have access to newdirect grants.
To future proof the apprenticeshipmodel going forward, Governmentmust also allow companies to spendmore levy funds on an apprenticeship to reflect the real cost of training a young person.
Stephen Phipson, CEOofMake UK said:
“Imaginative and speedy solutions are required to safeguardmanufacturing in the UK in these unprecedented times. A National
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80
