Workplace Skills

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:14 pm on 1 February 2022.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:14, 1 February 2022

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.