Employers must close training divide to solve UK skills crisis, says TUC

Britainís employers must act quickly to close the training divide between graduate and unskilled workers if Britain is to compete successfully in the global economy, according to a new TUC report published Saturday.

ëTime to tackle the training divideí - analyses the latest available official data for training take up in the UK to show that last year 41 per cent of graduate employees took part in work-based learning compared to only 12 per cent of their colleagues who left school without any qualifications.

A range of Government initiatives aimed at low and unskilled workers have helped narrow the training divide in recent years, but much more needs to be done if social inequality is not to get worse, says the report.

The TUC report highlights the fact that over a third of UK employers (35 per cent) systematically fail to offer their staff any training at work, and says this is a key reason why the UK has such a long way to go before it has a highly-skilled workforce.

ëTime to tackle the training divideí also looks at international research from the OECD, which suggests that those leaving school in the UK with no qualifications will only receive around a fifth of the training offered to their graduate colleagues over their working lives. Low and unskilled workers will only be involved in 103 hours of job-related training, while employees who went to university before starting out in the world of work can look forward to around 480 hours at work before they retire.

The OECD research also compares the training offered by UK employers with the learning opportunities on offer to workers in OECD countries. The 103 hours of training courses that workers without any formal qualifications will attend in the UK is in stark contrast to the overall OECD average of 210 hours available to low-skilled workers elsewhere. In a league table looking at the training of unskilled workers, the UK comes an embarrassing 12th in the list of 18 OECD countries that could provide comparative statistics.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: ìThe UK is becoming an increasingly unequal society and unless employers start to offer skills training equally to all their workforce, the situation is only going to get worse. Employers should be signing up to the Governmentís skills pledge, and taking advantage of the cash on offer to help them run training courses for their low-skilled workers.

ìLittle or no access to training leaves many unqualified workers in a catch 22 situation where they cannot get on at work because they are trapped in low paid jobs with no prospects of enhancing their skills and moving up the career ladder.

ìThe Government needs to get tough with employers who believe that training at work need not be something that concerns them. If the Governmentís skills pledge is going to change employer attitudes to training, ministers need to convince reluctant bosses of the urgent need to train their low and unskilled employees.î

ëTime to tackle the training divideí also highlights the role that union learning reps and the TUCís learning organisation, unionlearn, are playing in workplaces across the country, encouraging workers with little or no academic qualifications to improve their career prospects and take advantage of training opportunities at work.