Approach of Job Centres isn’t effective for upskilling people - Yorkshire Post Letters

I endorse your Comment (Yorkshire Post, February 2) on the need for more attention to ‘upskilling people in the existing workforce’ through training. But I feel there is a wider issue of fostering long-term interest in upward mobility.

In times of high unemployment Job Centres have focused on getting the unemployed into a job – any job. For them, that is ‘job done’ and perhaps another step taken towards meeting their own performance target.

Yet, even for a crude objective of getting the unemployment figures down, putting someone into a job which doesn’t develop their full potential and without thought of progression is not the most effective approach.

More able people stuck in entry-level jobs are blocking those posts, denying them to others who may also need a stepping stone or who might find that role a better long-term match for their talents.

The task of employers, particularly in the public sector, shouldn’t be to hoard within their organisation the best people they can find. Those better suited to other things should move on, making way for those who are more difficult to place.

Once in a full-time job, people may find themselves busy or tired during their time off. Thinking about one’s career may be put on hold for months and years, perhaps even decades. It may slip until the next unplanned break in employment, when the emphasis will again be on finding ‘any job’.

Rather than being cut off from a careers adviser on leaving school, college or a Job Centre, access to such counselling should be ongoing, with regular planned contact throughout one’s working life, whether in or out of work.

We as a country are our people. Getting the best out of them and helping them to get the best out of themselves should be second nature to us. We should not be finding ourselves short of skilled people and shrug this off as another case where we obviously need to bring in more workers from abroad.