Government can’t fix the jobs crisis alone – employers must step in
It is companies, not ministers who do the most to create meaningful work. Let’s get to it, says Octavius Black
One of Europe’s most successful fintechs has given its employees unlimited access to AI with a simple instruction: build tools that will multiply your productivity by a factor of ten. The results are highly personalised and making each employee individually exponentially more effective. As a result, the company pays them more and does everything in their power to keep them for longer.
At the other end of the spectrum, those entering the workplace are finding that the effects of AI can be devastating. Now that a bot can do the work of many analysts, graduate job vacancies have already tumbled by a third. The same applies to school leavers where, for example in construction, robots can lay four times more bricks in an hour than seasoned brick layers, and they don’t need a tea break.
The world of work will soon be divided between the ‘have bots’ and ‘have nots’.
The impact will be even faster, more acute and more difficult to reverse for those who aren’t currently in work.
The numbers are stark. Almost a million young people are not in education, employment or training. Economic inactivity due to long-term sickness has risen by nearly 700,000 since Covid. The total rise in unemployment and inactivity is equivalent to losing the entire working populations of Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh.
The data tells a troubling story. The proportion of young people on Universal Credit’s health element has doubled in six years. A young person on incapacity benefit today is less likely to find work than someone over 55 on the same benefit. Around 65 per cent of 20-year-olds claiming incapacity benefits a decade ago are still claiming them today. These are not just economic statistics. They are a portrait of a society that has stopped believing work is possible – or even desirable – for a growing share of its people.
Work is good for you
Getting the workless into work is not just a social and economic priority, it is also vital for health and wellbeing. As Wes Streeting proclaimed, work should be considered a cure for mild mental health conditions, not just a cause.
People in good jobs are less likely to suffer from depression, enjoy more stable home lives and report better physical and mental health. As my colleagues at MindGym have found across 25 years of research, good work has a greater impact on wellbeing than any number of gym memberships or counselling sessions. Work, done well, is one of the most powerful public health interventions we have, and unlike most, it also contributes to economic growth.
Pat McFadden’s £1bn package of hiring bonuses, reformed apprenticeships, and a Jobs Guarantee for long-term unemployed young people is a serious attempt to change the incentive structure. But government programmes and money alone will not shift a cultural problem.
Employers need to play their part, too.
That is why I am chairing the Jobs Foundation’s new Employer Taskforce of 30 major businesses, including BT, Marks & Spencer, AXA and Shell, committed to changing that. Our work is practical: examining what leading employers are already doing to recruit and retain people from disadvantaged backgrounds and turn that into tools any business can use. The Jobs Foundation Pledge, launching this Autumn, will give employers a roadmap to get Britain working.
We can all learn from what M&S has achieved with Marks & Start, or Greene King with its supported internships, which have collectively supported tens of thousands of young people into work. These are not acts of corporate charity. They are evidence that with the right approach, businesses can bring in people who have been written off and both watch them thrive and generate value to the company. The knowledge exists. The task now is to spread it.
A young person going onto benefits in their 20s could lose out on £1m of lifetime earnings and cost the state a similar sum to support
As Sir Charlie Mayfield’s Keep Britain Working Review found, a young person going onto benefits in their 20s could lose out on £1m of lifetime earnings and cost the state a similar sum to support. That is the price of our drift away from work. It is a price paid not in boardrooms or in Westminster, but in individual lives, quietly diminished.
We have spent a generation teaching people, especially young people, that work is something to be endured rather than embraced. “Work-life balance” has become the dominant metaphor of our times, implying that life begins only when work ends. We’ve lauded hustle culture, indulged quiet quitting and berated bosses whether on TV, with ‘The Office’, in the cinema with ‘Horrible Bosses’ which resonated so loudly they made it twice, or with employment legislation designed to protect employees against the most venal employers rather than supporting the vast majority.
The workless crisis is here and is destined to get worse. Government can make an impact but, alone, cannot fix it. It is companies who do most to create meaningful work. Let’s get to it.
Octavius Black CBE is chair of the Jobs Foundation Employer Taskforce and executive chair of MindGym