In the Budget announcement, the Chancellor has shown a keen awareness of the challenges our economy faces, and the need to address them. We particularly welcome his focus on addressing employment and labour shortages plus the need for an overall strategy to boost growth. Moves on expensing childcare and investment zones are starting down the right path. However more needs to be done to address skills shortages to help businesses and industry weather the current economic slowdown. This is concerning when labour and skills shortages could cost the UK economy up to £39 billion per year from 2024. Perhaps one way forward is to invest more in technical training schemes and apprenticeships in such a way as to get employers engaging and investing more. There is a need to both upskill current staff as well as to develop programmes to attract and train up new ones. Having a workforce with the skills that are in demand contributes to sustainable growth and leads to more innovation and improves companies’ competitiveness. This has been picked up in Europe where the EU Commission has agreed to make 2023 the European Year of Skills, where there will be more focus on investment in professional education and upskilling with closer cooperation with companies.
