Literacy news
UK continues to have too many people with low skills while low-skilled jobs are falling
1 Jun 2012
The Skills Supply and Demand report from the European Commission has found that some of the biggest challenges facing Britain in the long-term are around education, unemployment and welfare. It said:
There is a persistently large number of functionally illiterate and innumerate adults in the UK, usually with no qualifications.
It explained that the UK continues to have too many people with low skills. The economic costs of this problem are likely to increase over time if it is not effectively addressed.
Between 2010 and 2020, the number of low-skilled jobs in Britain is expected to fall by 51 per cent while medium and high-skilled jobs will increase by 16 per cent and 21 per cent respectively.
The European study claimed that the UK has an oversupply of low-skilled workers, but demand is falling and there is a shortage of workers with high-quality vocational skills. It also continues to have a relatively high number of adults with very poor basic literacy and numeracy skills, who are not well placed to benefit from vocational training.
Unemployment is expected to rise from the current level of 8.2 per cent to 8.5 per cent this year, according to forecasters in Brussels.
Read the full story at the Daily Mail. See the European Commission report here.
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