Job Creation 'Must Be At Heart' Of Budget for the UK

What should the Chancellor do in this week's Budget to boost employment? Mark Cahill, managing director of recruiter Manpower UK, gives his view.

With the latest official figures last week showing unemployment at a 17-year high, with over 2.5 million people out of work, creating jobs must be at the heart of the Chancellor's speech when he stands up in Parliament on Wednesday.

As a society, we should be alarmed by the high numbers of 16-24 year olds who can't get their feet on the first rung of the work ladder. Youth unemployment now stands at a staggering one in five and looks set to carry on rising.

But, you'd be wrong in thinking its all doom and gloom in the jobs market.

There are half a million vacancies out there and whilst the outlook for jobs in the public sector is particularly gloomy, at Manpower (NYSE: MAN - news) every week we are placing hundreds of people in jobs around the country.

I can report that there are some surprising sectors where there has a noticeable pickup in recruitment.

Take the banking sector. After two years of huge job losses throughout the industry, we are seeing demand returning from the very sector which some blame for getting us into a recession in the first place.

It's not just in the finance sector that we are seeing a pickup.

Consider Jaguar Land Rover's factory in Halewood on Merseyside. Production has picked up and we've easily been able to fill 1500 semi-skilled jobs without any difficulty.

However, when the same firm needed 80 specialised technicians, there simply wasn't the skilled workforce available in that part of the country. This is what I would call a talent mismatch.

Here, George Osborne can make a difference. Businesses are ready to invest in new jobs and rebuild our economy but they need the support of government.

Boosting skills and training must be high up the agenda on Wednesday. The government needs to support people to find jobs outside the areas they live in and encourage businesses to take on young people - be that through apprenticeships or other schemes.

Of course, the Government will not be able to tackle the problem of unemployment by itself. We all need to play our part.

The world of work is rapidly evolving with technological changes and employees cannot expect a job for life. Furthermore, we all need to think about more flexible ways of working.

The next few years will be difficult ones in the jobs market, but I'm confident that if the right decisions are taken we can get more people back into work and offer our young people greater hope for the future.

Source: Sky News