Scheme tipped to gain ground on skills gaps

The Government’s New Deal has the potential to reduce skills shortages, according to a report from the Industrial Society, published this week.

Research on the controversial welfare-to-work scheme shows that where New Deal advisers work closely with employers, the scheme can find sustained jobs for “hard-to-place” young unemployed people.

In the past the New Deal scheme has been plagued by high drop-out rates.

The New Deal: A Good Deal Better confirms a pattern of weak basic skills among many adult job-seekers, but also indicates that some merely lack confidence. Employers which have recruited successfully have invested heavily in training.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

Email(Required)

OptOut

From time to time, we will send you emails about selected products, events and services from Personnel Today and OHW+ - but you can choose to opt-out at any time. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please tick this box.

Name

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Δ

“Asda and Peugeot gained much out of the New Deal because they adopted the approach of ‘give us the raw recruits and we’ll train them’ – rather than crossing their fingers in the hope that the right people would apply. This has also been the case with Anglian Water,” the report concludes.

www.indsoc.co.uk