5. Will the First Minister make a statement on Welsh Government initiatives to develop workplace skills for secondary school learners? OQ57561

Developing workplace skills runs as a thread across all areas of the new Curriculum for Wales. It prepares learners for later life by giving them the knowledge, skills and experiences to thrive in their future careers.

Thank you, First Minister. The employer skills survey has reported that a wide range of skills and attributes are lacking among applicants for jobs within Wales, with over 84 per cent of vacancies partially caused by a lack of technical or practical competence, and 66 per cent partially caused by a lack of people and personal skills, such as the ability to manage one's own time and prioritise tasks. We all agree that a good academic education is important for the workplace, but we must recognise that these abilities can be wasted if a person does not have the complementary skills that are needed to obtain employment. This situation is made even worse if they have the wrong academic qualifications needed for the employment that they want. It seems obvious that a viable solution for tackling both youth unemployment and job recruitment is for high schools to have much better relationships with local businesses whereby these businesses are able to demonstrate directly to learners the skills and education that are required for jobs and to allow learners an opportunity to better understand how businesses work, what skills they need, and possibly, even open up the doors for better opportunities for employment.

To give an example, the Construction Industry Training Board, which represents a consortium of construction companies in Wales, has been very effective in opening doors to secondary school learners to experience active building sites and for them to take a behind-the-scenes tour to see the latest projects and building designs. A lack of adequate and relevant careers advice and work experience has always been a concern of mine and I believe that we can do better for our secondary school learners, providing longer integration into the workforce and by providing in-depth experiences of industry that will enable them to understand and develop the skills needed for employment. With this in mind, First Minister, what commitment will you give to ensure that secondary schools are proactively working with local businesses to integrate learners into the workforce while they're at school?

I thank the Member for that. I agree with a number of the points that he made; as well as the technical skills and academic qualifications that people need, it is often the human skills, the soft skills that get people into the workplace and allow them to make a success of that first experience. I also agree that the more that can be done to make sure that young people, in our secondary schools particularly, have access to work experience, to employers coming in to schools and colleges, the more opportunities there will be for young people, on the one hand, to learn about opportunities that are there for them, but, actually, also for employers to attract young people into those jobs.

Because, Llywydd, I think in the time that I will have been associated with devolution, we've seen a really profound change in this way, that, for a long time, what we thought the task was was to find jobs for young people to do, and, in future, I think the challenge is going to be to find young people to do the jobs, because we have fewer young people in Wales. We have more people of retirement age. You see the skill shortages that there are already in the Welsh economy, and employers are going to have to work harder to attract young people to come into the jobs that they need to be done. So, I think it's a two-way street in that way: it definitely benefits young people, but sensible firms of the sort that Joel James mentioned, who make those efforts, they know it's to their advantage as well, because they will be better able to attract those young people into their jobs of the future.

The Welsh Government has issued fresh guidance this month to schools on careers and work-related activity in schools, and, actually, Llywydd, a great deal does go on. In Career Discovery Week in July of last year, 146 secondary schools were involved; 177 secondary schools, or 85 per cent of the total, report, in Wales, that they have engagement with employers during the year, with eight out of 10 saying that they have multiple contacts with them. So, I agree with what the Member said about the need to build from that platform, because the more that we do to bring those two worlds together, the more there will be advantages for young people and the more there will be advantages for good employers as well.