2) What Skills

Unlike some people, the recent release of immigration figures didn’t make me think fondly of Enoch Powell; rather, it made me think again about the situation of the unemployed in the UK http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2801894.ece. The Leitch review, as has been discussed here before, has predicted that unskilled employment will shrink dramatically in the UK over the next twenty years, and in an economy where there is movement of labour across the EU, it will mean the few remaining unskilled jobs will be contested by migrant labour. This double whammy of a reduction of unskilled work and greater competition for that unskilled work is very bad news for our home grown young NEETS. In the past, these young people could drop out, drift, and when reality bit back, possibly when they became responsible for a child, they would find a job and rejoin the mainstream. This looks an increasingly difficult project, as the jobs they will be able to find will be temporary and paid at the minimum wage. The group I think that are least well prepared for this new reality are white working class boys from areas where traditional heavy labouring work has disappeared over the past 30 years. Many of these young men remain locked into a macho culture that is rooted in a way of life that no longer exists. They proudly identify themselves as straight talking, no-nonsense, hard working, real men. Unfortunately, for them, their adopted culture tends to downgrade or denigrate those personal skills which are essential, even for the low wage, low skill, work of the future. Although my evidence is largely anecdotal, the reason NEETS cannot find work or training isn’t because their GCSE results are weak, it’s because they turn up late for work, argue with the supervisor, ignore customers and clash with their colleagues. Better to employ a willing eastern European, whose English may be poor, than struggle with one of our home-grown NEETS who you know will be unreliable and may cause trouble. Once again, I think this shows that the educational needs of the most disadvantaged and disaffected are at the level of discipline and non-cognitive skills rather than GCSEs grades. That’s where apparently trivial matters such as school lunch breaks and places to socialise, are important, especially for those children with the less developed social skills http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2209798,00.html .