Make job creation easier, not harder

We need apprenticeships, we need a skilled workforce and we need skilled and unskilled members of the workforce matched with job vacancies. It sounds so obvious but it is easy to see how things can go wrong: too few jobs, too few people with the required skills, too few people for the unskilled posts. This means that some employers have to go to other countries to find skilled and unskilled members of staff. This isn't an easy option but if the company wants to get the job done then difficult decisions have to be made.

There is good news. There is a Government drive which is making it easier to take on employees and which is helping to increase the number of apprenticeships. So what can the Labour Party offer in opposition? The Labour Party conference is starting today and they have decided they want more apprentices and that they don't want employers to choose employees from other countries. So they have combined the two ideas

The trouble is that employers already prefer a local workforce. The trouble is that employers already want to employ apprentices. It would be nice to think that the role of government would be to make these preferences easier to implement. Labour has chosen to make these preferences harder to implement. According to Ed, "...we're going to say to any firm who wants to bring in a foreign worker that they also have to train up someone who's a local worker, training up the next generation". There is no doubt that this policy would increase business costs.

What happens if the company can't afford the extra apprenticeships? The firm could go to the wall. There is an alternative scenario. The company decide that they won't employ the highly skilled foreign worker and they go without those skills. And then they slowly go to the wall.

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