Paul Convery

1
Learning, skills and crime reduction

• Paul Convery
• Director, Centre for Economic Social Inclusion

2
Contradictions for young people

• Aspiration to maturity at earlier ages
• adult lifestyle pressure
• exposure to risky behaviour
• Achieving economic independence later
• extended educational participation
• later entry into labour market

3
Confusions for young people

• Labour market complexity
• more demanding employer requirements
• less tenure and diminished security
• Weakened family and community support
• atypical family structures
• weakened community and informal networks
• family formation undermined by non-employment

4
16-18s outside employment, training and education
(LFS)
5
NEET characteristics
6
NEET characteristics

• Classed as ILO unemployed
• 75 of young men
• 52, of young women (but a further 25 looking
  after family)
• Nearly 35,000 (18) have a disability or health
  condition (21 of young men but only 14 of young
  women)

7
Skills polarisation

• No qualifications down from 25 (1992) to 13
  (1999)
• 45 of workforce now have NVQ3 (was 33 in 1992)
  but no increase in those qualified to level 3
• about 30 are significantly over-educated
• skilled people get even more trained
• 20 of degree qualified workers regularly receive
  employer funded training
• compared with only 8 of those qualified to VQ2
  and 3 with no formal qualifications

8
Wage premiums

• Literacy - achievement at NVQ level 1 - 16
• Numeracy - achievement at NVQ level 1 - 26
• GCSEs - 21 over non-qualified
• A levels - 17 over GCSEs
• With a degree - 28 over A levels
• Graduates - 66 over non qualified
• Level 3 is threshold above which earnings exceed
  national average
• unskilled earn 30 less than national average
• Women aged 30-44 - premium of degree holders over
  level 3 is 110 - highest in the OECD

9
(No Transcript)
10
(No Transcript)
11
Employment rates
12
(No Transcript)
13
(No Transcript)
14
(No Transcript)
15
Attributes of the new affluency

• Proportion of jobs requiring degrees risen at
  almost 1 percentage point each year
• Upward trend in requirement for generic skills
  computing, writing, problem-solving and
  professional communication skills
• Extent and complexity of computer use rising
  "fairly important, very important or essential"
  in two thirds of jobs - increasing by nearly 3
  percentage points a year
• Internet use "fairly important, very important
  or essential" for more than 1 in 3 workers.

16
Skill gap characteristics

• Basic computing skills
• Advanced IT skills
• Management skills
• Other technical and practical skills
• Communication skills
• Customer handling
• Team working
• Problem solving
• Literacy and numeracy (reported by 25 of
  lower/manual skill workplaces)

17
Main occupations with skill-shortage vacancies

• craft and skilled trades (22 of the total)
• associate professional occupations (17)
• sales occupations (13)
• personal service occupations (11).
• Main industries with skill-shortage vacancies
• craft-intensive construction (12 of the total)
  and manufacturing sectors (16) and
• two large service industries - finance (17) and
  wholesale/retail (17).

18
What needs to change?

• Better delivery system
• Partnership and collaboration
• Learning from practice
• Measurement of success

19
Internet

• www.cesi.org.uk/talks