Among the package of measures to support private sector investment, enterprise and innovation, governments have announced plans to stimulate private enterprise.
Speaking this afternoon as part of his ‘Budget for Growth’, chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne claimed employees in the UK were lower skilled and lower qualified than their counterparts in France and Germany.
To remedy this, Osborne announced plans to help create up to 50,000 additional apprenticeships and an additional 80,000 work placements for young people, and expanding the University Technical Colleges programme to at least 24 new colleges by 2014 to provide technical qualifications for 11-19 year olds;
Peter McHugh, CEO and Founder, Covalent Software commented on this news
“With the latest official figures showing unemployment at a 17-year high, with over 2.5 million people out of work, it is encouraging to see that the creation of jobs and a young and talented workforce was at the heart of the Chancellor’s Budget. My advice to businesses is that they must act smartly with this task of lowering unemployment and absorbing the job cuts made in the public sector, to avoid putting their own organisation in jeopardy.
“Companies must use this as an opportunity to train and develop a young skilled workforce in order to bridge any current skills gap within their own organisation. By managing existing talent within your organisation, companies can ensure that any jobs or apprenticeships created will be aligned with the overall corporate goals of their organisation saving time and money that could be wasted on hiring the wrong person or developing unnecessary roles. Protecting and managing existing talent as well as identifying where fresh talent can benefit a business will be the way businesses can take advantage of today’s outcome.”