Labour is today [Wednesday] warning that Conservative failures on
further education are leading to rising vacancies in key
industries such as health and care while the number of further
education students in these subjects in declining.
New data has revealed there were 133,000 vacancies in health and
social work from February to April this year while information
and communication industries had 41,000 vacancies. This has
followed a steady rise in vacancies over the last decade, with
the health sector in particular seeing vacancies more than double
from the same quarter in 2011.
In contrast, Labour analysis shows the number of students in
these subjects is declining with healthcare apprentice numbers
falling by over 50,000 since 2015 and overall health and care
further education student numbers falling by over 153,000 in the
past three years, with information and communication technology
student numbers falling by over 52,000 during the same period.
Under the Conservatives, spending on adult education and
apprenticeships has fallen by more than a third since 2009/10.
These figures have been published ahead of a speech by , Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, to the World
Skills Conference in Dudley, where she will highlight that the
Government’s Queen’s Speech missed the opportunity to reverse
this trend, and call on Minister’s to heed Labour’s call for a
jobs promise to guarantee education or employment opportunities
for young people.
Labour’s jobs promise would provide quality training, education
or employment opportunities for young people who have been out of
work, education or training for six months. Alongside this,
Labour’s plan for a green economic recovery would create 400,000
secure jobs in low-carbon industries across the country such as
steel and the automotive industry, creating new employment
prospects.
To create opportunities in response to the pandemic, Labour has
called on Ministers to use the underspend from the
apprenticeships levy to create an apprentice wage subsidy and
boost opportunities. Last year this could have created 85,000 new
apprenticeship opportunities for young people aged 16 – 24.
, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, said:
“The Conservatives’ failures on education are translating into
serious skills shortages for across our public services and
economy: as vacancies within crucial services such as NHS and
social care have risen, student numbers have declined.
“The Government’s Lifetime Skills Guarantee and apprenticeships
incentive are compounding this failure, excluding millions of
jobs and failing to create the opportunities our country needs.
“Labour is calling for Ministers to put skills and further
education at the heart of our pandemic recovery with an
apprenticeship wage subsidy and jobs promise to give
opportunities to every young person.”
Ends
Notes to editors
- From February to April 2021 there were 133,000 vacancies in
Human health & social work activities and 41,000 in
Information & communication
Vacancies have risen gradually during the decade of Conservative
Government – for the same quarter in 2011, Human health &
social work vacancies were 52,000 and Information and
Communication had vacancies of 33,000.
Vacancies by industry:https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/datasets/vacanciesbyindustryvacs02
- Change in further education student numbers 2017/18 – 2019/20
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/fast-track/323c4c9d-ac77-4070-a466-ab73b89fb7ab
- There has been a decline in apprentice starts across health,
engineering and retail of over 128,000 since 2015:
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/71db87ff-f007-4c71-8b53-11153596c268
- Total spending on adult education and apprenticeships
combined is still about 35% down on 2009–10 in real terms, IFS
2020 annual report on education spending in England https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/15150
The Government budgeted for 100,000 hires under the scheme:
“Includes the indicative cost of 100,000 incentive payments for
new apprenticeship hires."
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-plan-for-jobs-documents/a-plan-for-jobs-2020
