<p>The Employment Rate</p>

Part of 2. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:20 pm on 21 June 2016.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 2:20, 21 June 2016

There are elements of—. There are issues of productivity for the whole of the UK and Wales is no exception in that regard. We have a legacy from the 1980s and 1990s of an economic policy that got rid of well-paid jobs and instead put in place jobs that were amongst the lowest paid in western Europe at the time. That’s not the economic policy that anybody—he or I—would want to see in the future. We are seeing more and more investment coming in to Wales through good-quality jobs. We’ve seen, for example, companies like Aston Martin, like TVR, like CGI—these are well-paid, skilled jobs. The challenge for us is to make sure that our people have the skills that an employer needs in order for that employer to prosper in Wales. Increasingly, that is happening. So, I would expect to see GVA increase over the course of the next few years, given the fact that the quality of the jobs that we’re attracting now, and the money that they pay, is in the right direction. We’re no longer a low-wage economy, a low-skill economy. That was what Wales was presented as in the 1980s and early 1990s. Never again.