6. What is the Welsh Government doing to address the workforce shortage and skills gap in North Wales? OQ58583

I've set out action within the employability and skills plan to help everyone, particularly those furthest from the labour market, to navigate and respond to any work-related challenges they may face, whether that is through training, upskilling or changing careers.

Thank you, Minister. Businesses and agencies are struggling to recruit due to leaving the EU, visa complications and the pandemic. The slogan 'Stop immigration now' drove a lot of the Brexit rhetoric, without any recognition of the huge contributions that those that move here make here in the UK. The pandemic made people over 50 rethink their lifestyle, not wanting to work the now normalised long hours and terrible shifts that are expected. Public service funding is dire, and private businesses can no longer fill the gap that would be left behind by the public sector. Minister, what are you doing to encourage those that are in their 50s back to work, to promote recruitment into the public as well as the private sector, and to tell UK Ministers that people from other countries are actually welcome here to work? Thank you.

Thank you for the questions. We are certainly looking to improve employment prospects for people who are economically inactive, particularly those aged over 50. We have seen, particularly pronounced at the end and post pandemic, a number of people who have made choices, some of those deliberate choices about wanting to get a different balance between work and life, but also a range of other people who have found themselves with a tale of long-term ill health, and other people who have acquired new and different caring responsibilities. There is a range of different reasons why people have left the labour market. Some of those people, anecdotally, are looking to come back, and that's largely driven by the cost-of-living crisis and the fact that people need to come back to work. What we want to do is to make sure that people are in the best place possible to return to the labour market and to give them the skills and the opportunity to enter the labour market for a job that they will find fulfilling and helpful with their financial challenges and opportunities.

When it comes to migration, actually, one of the few good things, I think, that were in Kwasi Kwarteng's growth plan was a different conversation about migration that would have upset lots of his own team. But, actually, we consistently made the case with the UK Government that we need a different approach to migration. For key sectors of our economy, including public services, the rhetoric and the image that the UK Government does not want people from other parts of the world to come here to work or to be part of our community—and you see this again in the current Home Secretary and the way she has spoken about people—is entirely self-defeating. We want a much more sensible approach that is driven by the needs of the economy, yes, but also driven by an approach that is decent and recognises other human beings in their basic humanity. I don't think that is always the case with the current UK Government.

Can I thank the Member for submitting today's question? As has already been outlined, there is clearly a challenge in recruitment of the workforce and the skills gap in north Wales. Indeed, at the start of this year, research in The Leader showed that nearly half of all businesses are struggling to recruit new workers, and this continues to be reiterated when meeting employers, as I'm sure you do, Minister, as well. But one of the key areas, I believe, we could be looking to focus more on is promoting the educational benefits and skills of apprenticeships. I'm sure you agree, Minister, that apprenticeships can be extremely successful career paths that, importantly, often see more skills progression and job retention than, perhaps, going to university. Of course, for north Wales, this is a great opportunity, because it's such a great place to live and to work as well. So, in light of this, Minister, what work are you undertaking with the Minister for education to ensure our future workforce are made aware of the fantastic benefits of apprenticeships that can lead to well-paid, long careers and, ultimately, help in addressing the future skills gap that we are facing?

Of course, I think this and our previous iterations of Welsh Labour-led Governments have a good record on promoting apprenticeships, not just on the numbers, but also on the quality and the completion stats. I remember Ken Skates, when he was an even younger man, as a skills Minister, and the work he was doing and the fact that our completion figures even then were much better than was being achieved by the UK Government in England, and that's a record we've continued.

Our challenge is about getting enough people to want to go into the apprenticeship route, and employers that will benefit from it as well. There is a real financial challenge in that as well. We've talked before in this Chamber about the fact that a third of our apprenticeship programme was funded by now former EU funds, and that gives us a really big challenge to get over. We've also seen rising inflation that's creating more and more pressure, also not just on apprenticeships, but on in-work training as well. A number of employers are now interested in what they can do to recognise that the future worker is largely here—your employees in 10 years' time are probably in your workforce already—and what you can do to upskill people in the workplace as well. 

I attended this morning a Skills Cymru programme. They're expecting 5,000 people towards the end of their high school career to look at future choices, and apprenticeship options and options in future skills are very much part of what they're talking about. So, there is a deliberate and purposeful conversation we're having about all routes for the future—further education, apprenticeships, other skills, and not just the university route—to not just a rewarding career in terms of the people you'll meet, but in terms of the financial rewards that are on offer as well.