Upskilling the UK Workforce: United Kingdom

July 24, 2024

Preview Citation

Format: Chicago

Pragyan Deb, and Gloria Li. Upskilling the UK Workforce: United Kingdom, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2024) accessed December 3, 2024

Summary

The UK workforce has larger and more chronic skills gaps than in most peer countries, with surveys reporting widespread recruitment difficulties, with implications for output, in high-skill sectors like digital and software, manufacturing, medicine and life sciences, teaching, and construction. This partly reflects declines in primary and post-secondary education outcomes (particularly science scores, over the past two decades) and in workplace training and apprenticeships, particularly for the young. Moreover, the recent increase in non-EU migrants has not fully offset the adverse impact from Brexit on the availability of needed skills, including because smaller firms face more recruitment hurdles with regard to non-EU hires. Against this backdrop, there is an urgent need to upskill the UK workforce, both by building on ongoing efforts, as well as additional concrete measures to: (i) encourage students and young workers to join and excel in STEM; (ii) ensure adequate vocational and on the job training, particularly for the young; (iii) retain the talent produced by UKs world leading universities; (iv) upskill the existing labor force; and (v) facilitate attraction and retention of in-demand skills through adjustments to the visa regime.

Subject: Education, Education spending, Expenditure, Labor, Labor force

Keywords: Demand skill, Education spending, Labor force, Post-secondary education outcome, Potential Growth, Recruitment difficulty, Skills, Skills gap, Supply of Labour, UK workforce

Publication Details

Pages:

18
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Selected Issues Paper No. 2024/030
Stock No:

SIPEA2024030
ISBN:

9798400283741
ISSN:

2958-7875

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