Member Article

UKCES urges employers to help young people into work

The UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) is calling for employers to do more to help young people into work, following new findings from HSBC and the Prince’s Trust.

In response to results from a poll by the Prince’s Trust and HSBC, UKCES is warning employers that they must act now in order to avoid a skills crisis in the next 12 months.

43% of employers believe there will be a significant skills crisis in the UK in the next 12 months, while 73% think it may happen in the next three years.

72% signalled recruiting young people as ‘vital’ to preventing this shortage, reflecting UKCES calls for employers to take more action to recruit young people to tackle their skills needs.

Alex Curling, assistant director at UKCES said: “It is welcome news that so many businesses are seeing the recruitment of young people as the answer to this problem, but employers must now turn words into action to resolve this issue.

Young people can bring a wealth of benefits to any business, but are desperately in need of more opportunities from employers to get into employment – our research has consistently highlighted that the main reason employers fail to recruit young people is a lack of experience, yet less than a third (27%) are prepared to offer work experience opportunities to young people.“

The report also refers to findings from the UKCES’ Employer Skills Survey which reported that 83% of employers who take on graduates find them well or very well prepared for work, with two thirds (66%) of employers recruiting 17 to 18-year-old school leavers finding them well prepared for the world of work.

Image used under Flickr’s creative commons license. Credit: Sakeeb Sabakka

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .