Awkward Questions

A few months ago I was undertaking some research for a food processing report and I interviewed  a small organic food processing company – acting as a distributor of organic fruit and vegetables across Cambridge.  The staff (14 of them) generally undertook unskilled operations – packing and sorting fruit and veg into different boxes.  The company did not have a ‘policy’ on skills;  some of the staff had qualifications but it was incidental – and staff turnover was very low.  This is not necessarily a good example of a food processing company – and yet it does beg some awkward questions:    if staff are content to work here, why can’t other employers create a similar working environment?  What has skills got to do with job satisfaction? 

The relentless pursuit of skills for the sake of “UK Plc” seems at times, difficult to justify.  Sometimes, surely we should be able to admit that the formal acquisition of skills is not necessary, not even helpful, in an employee’s enjoyment and fulfilment at work – and would make little difference to the company’s performance.  Lifelong learning is a more useful expression of value.  It makes an assumption that (a) all learning is good; and (b) continuous learning throughout life is a goal for everyone. Lifelong learning does not qualify what is to be taught, what qualifications are to be gained, or what contribution towards UK competitiveness will be achieved.  And yet lifelong learning could be seen as a far superior goal than simply the pursuit of skills and their progression through levels  1 – 8, precisely because it offers a universal, all encompassing approach to learning that is more likely to free people from the straight jacket of skills conformity.

How would a policy aimed at lifelong learning differ from skills levels attainment?   First, it would not insist on a skills development framework but would simply promote learning for its own sake;  secondly it would not berate employers for neglecting their duty to upskill – but instead would seek to support both employers and employees in their learning aims.  Thirdly it would encourage diversity in learning rather than homogeneity – resulting in a wider knowledge base than would be conceivable under a rigid skills framework.  Finally, it would contribute more to the breaking down of barriers and divisions across society and lead to greater innovation in teaching, learning, and working.   

As the purse strings tighten, these are important challenges to consider.  What is at stake is more than the number of level 2s and 3s we can record up and down the country;  A lifelong learning approach could be a faster route to a more competitive UK.  Food for thought on a cold winter’s day!

Low Skills Equilibrium ?

Is there such a thing as a low skills equilibrium and if so, does it matter?  There are areas across the UK where the skills levels required by employers are quite low.  Turning up for work on time, being fit and hopefully having the right attitude may be all that’s required.  The theory of an equilibrium suggests that this ‘demand’ maintains low aspirations in the local economy – creating a balance between what is required and what is delivered.  Sectors such as hospitality and food processing are sometimes ‘accused’ of helping to create a low skills equilibrium, but to what degree is this actually true?  First of all its difficult to imagine a sector being so dominant in a community that it is able to dictate the level of skills required overall.  More often than not there are a multiplicity of sectors operating in an area, usually split between private and public employers.  Could it really be the case that all employers are only requiring a low level of skills?  Moreover, many employers from e.g. food processing, insist that their workforce is in fact very well skilled.  Its just that they don’t gain qualifications for the skills they acquire whilst at work and therefore the real skills levels go unrecorded.   So low level skills may be illusory from both the supply and demand side of the equation.

Secondly, there is the issue of labour shortages in low level skills sectors.  If, all of the available local low skilled labour was employed in the local companies then one could see that the skills demanded was indeed being met by the local skills supplied. But often one finds this isn’t the case.  Local unemployment among low skilled people remains intractable and employers recruit migrant labour to meet their needs.  So, far from there being an equilibrium one can think more of a low skills disequilibrium whereby the local labour available isn’t meeting the requirements of local employers – not because they possess the wrong level of skills but for some of other reason – (e.g. perception of the industry among the local community; perception of the local community among employers).

So whilst there may not be a low skills equilibrium in the strictest sense, there is clearly a problem with low skilled unemployed people in the community.  There are many initiatives which attempt to address this issue – and it is not the subject of this particular piece.  I am more interested in establishing whether employers really do keep skills level low – or at the very least, whether they are content with low level skills.  This is important to ascertain, because employers, especially from the private sector have an enormous role to play in setting the UK on the right development path.  Skills should be at the centre of that development.