On Tuesday 21 November 2023, the Work Foundation hosted the Delivering Levelling Up? webinar. The webinar explored new research looking at how where you live and work in England can have a significant impact on your ability to access secure and well paid work.
It shows access to secure employment opportunities is not felt equally across England, and sets out a series of measures that could reduce regional inequalities, and introduce a big step forward for the Levelling Up agenda. The research looks at the picture across the nine Mayoral Combined Authorities and Greater London, and the interventions that could improve workers’ access to secure work across the country.
Speakers included:
• Rebecca Florisson (Principal Analyst, Work Foundation)
• Ben Harrison (Director, Work Foundation)
• Andrea Barry (Principal Economist, Youth Futures Foundation)
• Paul Swinney (Director of Policy and Research, Centre for Cities)
• Fiona Aldridge (Head of Insight & Intelligence, West Midlands Combined Authority)
For more information about future Work Foundation events please see: www.theworkfoundation.com.
Hello everyone and welcome to the latest Work Foundation event looking at how insecure work plays out across England and the extent to which tackling insecure work could help us reduce Regional inequalities my name is Ben Harrison I’m the director here at the Work Foundation we’re a policy Think
Tank which is part of Lancaster University uh and we’re committed to supporting everyone to access well-paid secure employment and our current work program is particularly focused on job insecurity for those who face structural disadvantage within the labor market and the inter relationship between health and work as
Well over the course of the last three years we’ve spent quite a lot of time and produced quite a range of research aimed at understanding more about how insecure work manifests itself in the UK in the 21st century our UK insecure work index uh provided a new measure of
Insecurity taking into account not just things like zero hours contracts but also levels of pay and access to key employment rights and what it revealed is that there are over 6 and a half million people in the UK today working in severely insecure employment and that has all kinds of impacts and
Implications for them uh for the places that they live and the labor market more broadly we’ve been able to dig down further to understand the worker groups who are most at risk of experiencing job insecurity and in particular that includes women those from black and ethnic minority backgrounds those with
Disabilities and young people as well as some of the sectors like retail and Hospitality where this work is often primarily concentrated but our aim for today is to explore how these factors are playing out across England and really to get under the skin of the question to what
Extent does where you live have a big impact on your chances of ending up in severely insecure world work and alongside that what can we do at the level of place um to try and Tackle uh some of the job insecurity that we see across the country to help us to do this
Uh Work Foundation principal analyst Rebecca Floris is going to shortly give an overview uh of our work looking at labor market insecurity across English combined authorities and then I’m delighted to also be joined by an expert panel who will be offering their Reflections as we go through the conversation this afternoon uh in
Particular Andrea Barry who’s principal Economist at the youth Futures Foundation Paul swinny director of research and policy at Center for cities and Fiona Aldridge head of insight on economic delivery skills and Enterprise at West Midlands combined Authority before I hand over to Rebecca who will take you through our analysis and the
Headline data I just want to say that we will be recording the session today and if you want to ask a question of anybody who’s speaking today during the session then please do use the Q&A function in Zoom not the chat the Q&A function and I’ll be monitoring that through the
Conversation and I’ll do my best uh to make sure we get through some of those in the course of the conversation for now though I’ll hand over to you Rebecca and then we’ll open up the conversation after we’ve heard we’ve heard from you thanks very much for that
Ben just going to St that um unless I hear anything to the contrary I’m going to assume that the slides are working properly um hi everybody good afternoon I’m Rebecca Floris and um as Ben has been saying we’ve been doing a lot of work um around insecurity over the past
Few years and one of the really interesting kind of puzzles that we came across was that we’d initially thought that we might see quite a bit of um Regional variation in that extent to which people experience insecurity but we saw a lot less of a difference between north and south or between the
Different regions than we were expecting and that was really because um insecurity plays out at a much more local level so we’ve set out to look at um differences in the extent to which people experience insecurity across the different um majoral combined authorities in England and really we’ve
Set out to identify kind of what the drivers are for seeeing the differences that we are seeing um in addition to our paper uh delivering leveling up we have also taken deeper dives into the the city regions there was just not enough space in the uh in the report itself to do
Justice to all of it um so we have public nine City region employment profiles for the um majoral combined authorities we’ve also published a profile for greater London and two profiles for future majoral combined Authority so East Midlands and um the Northeast so they look in in Greater
Detail at um sort of The Wider context of those labor markets so employment unemployment levels of security all down to the local Authority level um some of you will be very familiar by now with um the way that the Work Foundation understands and measures insecure work but just as a bit of a
Recap for those who are less familiar with it um we look at insecurity in the labor market through the lens of three different ways in which people can experience precarity the first of which is contractual insecurity so that’s where people are not guaranteed future hours or future work then we have
Financial insecurity where people might be on unpredictable pay or that pay is simply too low to get by and a lack of access to worker rights and protections either by virtue of employment status or because um um because people haven’t worked for their employer for a given amount of
Time yet and so they’re missing out on a specific sort of Rights and entitlements now it’s really important to to emphasize that none of these forms of work indicate bad work per se it’s just that we know that for many people multiple forms of insecurity come together and that can um um really
Negatively impact people’s finances um their their physical and mental well-being um and their their future employment uh prospects and outcomes so we have uh mapped these indicators in the labor force survey and brought them together into an index um so that gives us um nearly nearly half of workers in the UK in
England currently are in Secure work which means they have none of the indicators of insecurity um but the group of workers that we’re focusing on particularly is that nearly 20% uh of workers so one in five workers who are in severely insecure work for us that means that they are in uh they
Experience involuntary part-time or involuntary temporary work um meaning that they are in in part-time or temporary work but they really want to be working full-time or in a permanent job or they experience um multiple forms of insecurity coming together so let’s keep the 19.8% in mind when we go on to the next
Slide um where we’re looking at the the difference um in the the average level of insecurity for each of the majoral combined authorities and greater London so we’re seeing here that that Baseline of the 0% that basically indicates the average so the 19.8% of people who are in insecure
Work um and then we see in places like Liverpool cambri and petero um the level of insecurity is um a bit lower um so would hover around 19% um so that is quite good but at the same time 19% is still about one in five people in severely insecure work so that
Is still quite a substantial number of people then when we compare that to a place like teas Valley we see that 24% of workers in teas Valley are in insecure work so that is nearly one in four workers compared with one in five nationally um I mean so there there are some of
These differences that we’re seeing between the combined authorities but there’s also actually larger differences within the combined authorities so we’re using two examples here and that you can also find in those City region um employment profiles um we’re looking here at the West Midlands and then at cambri and
Petero so you can see on this map um by the the differences in color as well as in the uh First Column in the table that there’s quite a range of difference in that experience of insecure work so for example in Dudley that’s highlighted in green uh maybe around one in six people
Experience insecure work um but that goes up to about actually over one in four people in wolver Hampton um so quite a big difference there within um the West Midlands a very similar picture here for for cambrid and petero where you see fenland and the the city of Cambridge
That have quite low levels of insecure work but then Peter bro more than one in four people are in severely insecure work so quite substantial um we we know kind of what what the drivers are for this so we know that um it’s kind of the sectoral mix and the
Kinds of jobs that are available in an area that drive those levels of insecurity that we’re seeing we know from some of our previous work that um insecurity tends to be concentrated in specific sectors so particularly in in hospitality and distribution services agriculture retail um and Health and
Social care but the interesting thing was that when we look deeper into very specifically Hospitality so just hotels and restaurants we could see that there were still quite strong differences in outcomes from people across the country um so on our frge across England uh about half of hospitality workers are
In severely insecure work um there is this quite a um a large incidence there of zero hours contracts temporary work etc but um let we see places like Liverpool greater London have slightly lower than average levels of insecurity in that sector but in West Midland and teas Valley that is substantially um and
Significantly higher um than that average and we’ve the way we’re looking at that is that in a place like Liverpool you have a visitor economy and a Hospitality sector that is um basically all year round um it caters to a lot of corporate events really large cultural events um and so it its
Activities are quite sort of high value added whereas in for example teas Valley the visitor economy and and Hospitality economy is a lot more seasonal in nature and it tends to cater to particularly day trips um so it has lower value added activities um so that might mean that um
Where we see um higher value added activities in specific sectors that might mean that employers or businesses have more capacity to offer secure jobs um we’re seeing a relatively similar picture here across jobs across different jobs so basically in the places where you would see um higher
Levels of specific sectors that be quite insecure you might see higher levels overall of insecure work um and the same thing with jobs so we know that um routine jobs and semi-routine jobs so those are more manual jobs um like hairdressers waiters cashiers Etc um insecurity tends to be concentrated
Within those roles as sort of opposed to professional or managerial roles but even there we’re seeing big differences uh across the country so in South Yorkshire and Liverpool uh lower than average rates of insecurity in routine jobs um but much higher than average rates in in west of England north of
Time and Kure and Peter bro and again we think that is related to um the kinds of value added of the activities that are being conducted in the businesses and in the sectors that these jobs are housed in now there are um a report made some recommendations to both government and majoral combined
Authorities on what could be done to to lower the rate of insecure work across the country um so let’s start with uh the recommendations that we made to government um of course the long awaited employment bill has been indefinitely delayed but this remains a really important vehicle for us to put um like
Job quality and security really Central um within labor market regulation so this is something that we will continue to call for um but in addition to sort of suggesting that we might need some update to some of the the the rules and regulations that we’ve got around the
Labor market it is also absolutely key that we enforce existing rights and protections and ensure that particularly insecure workers have recourse to redress um then there is something that we have called for a number of times and um that is statutory sick pay so government has responded to um the consultation by
Saying that for them now is not the time to reform sick pay but if is absolutely essential that we do reform this and um we saw during the covid-19 pandemic how important it was that people had access to this um and that remains the case particularly because a lot of insecure
Workers are are missing out um so our proposals around that would be to reduce the waiting time for statutory sick pay to remove the earnings threshold to sort of widen access to statutory sick pay raising the rate is really important because the rate of SSP currently is is very low in the international
Context um but then also self-employed workers don’t get sick pay um so we need to put some sort of insurance in place for these workers so that they are also protected when they can’t work due to ill health we’ve seen a really positive development around um this bill the
Right to request predictable working Arrangements but that bill doesn’t go far enough It suffers from the same things that other right to request um uh instruments have which is is that um it can be refused a right to request is not a right to have it um people may not
Want to request it when they know it will not be granted Etc plus there is a waiting period involved so this could be reformed by for example producing the waiting period from 26 weeks down to day one in the job but um there might be um there might be a
Call there to to move Shifty owners towards employers so for example to give people um just a right to guaranteed hours a right to predictable working Arrangements unless they request otherwise that could be a right to request irregular hours for majoral combin authorities um we’ve seen that some of the those
Combined authorities have um made tackling insecure work a very explicit priority in um some of their strategies um even though that might not be feasible or even wanted for all of the combin authorities this is um very important to uh to tackle really explicitly as an aim um the major comine authorities have
A really good in-depth view of their local situations and um currently enforcement is is National it’s not devolved it’s not looking like it will be devolved so it’s really important for for those majoral combined authorities to work together with national enforcement bodies and really map the high-risk sectors at risk uh um
Organizations and to raise awareness of employment rights and protections among both employers and workers we’ve also seen quite an increase in recent years in um employment Charters um so that has been a very positive development areas actively working on improving the quality and conditions of work in their
In their local areas um again that might not be feasible for all combined authorities or all regions but there’s very important lessons in there around employer engagement and incentivizing employers to to provide better working conditions that could be really helpful across the board um the major comine authorities also
Have very important policy levers that they could use um around procurement and investment um that could be used as well to incentivize employers to um to improve working conditions and finally we’ve seen some great examples across the the majoral combin authorities around um SK skill strategies so particularly providing tailored um
Skills training to uh move insecure workers into secure jobs or to um basically interrupt that some of that harmful cycling in between worthlessness and insecure work thank you very much thank you Rebecca that’s really helpful uh in terms of setting the context of of of analysis um I’d now
Like to invite Andrea bar from the youth Futures Foundation to offer her Reflections on both the analysis that you’ve just heard from Rebecca but also the kind of the broader labor market context uh for young people given Andrew we know that many young People’s First experience of work is very often in more
Precarious employment settings so I’ll I’ll hand over to you now for your Reflections thank you and um I just have to say again the the um work the report I think was really um it was really good but also quite frankly really Stark because um here at e Futures Foundation
We recognize that young people are just significantly more likely to be an in their work and young there’s a there’s a narrative sometimes that you know when you’re young you you sometimes do those jobs and it’s it’s part of the normal cycle of being in employment but we
Would argue it has significant starring effects and that and not all young people experience insecure work I mean overall 46% of young people aged 16 to 19 and 27 over 27 perc of young people from 2024 are in insecure work which is um pretty pretty um dark for you under
20 and they also have to deal with something where they are more likely to be linked to insecure work due to pay um it’s like they’re they’re usually on the bottom end of the pay scale and part of that is because they pay the different minimum wage than workers over the age
Of 23 so when you’re the age 18 you’re paid just over I think it’s about 7 pound 40 compared to workers over the age of 23 are closer to 11 pounds as their minimum wage so even when they start work they automatically start on the lower end of pay and which means
They’re actually more suceptible to insecure work and there’s you know young people can still be responsible for their own bills on their own they can also be responsible for being the head of household and we know that there is a relatively good amount of young people
Who are their head of household so they are responsible for all of their own bills they do not have additional family support and they cannot um easily just go move back home with Mom and Dad if they need to if their um cost increase and their their job is still not giving
Them enough hours every day um and a good 29% of workers under the contract report having no paid holiday entitlement and the under 25 are more likely to have zero holiday entitlement and no pay flip um and 11% on viour contract so I think it’s and it’s sorry
Just to say it’s the only group without that have um a z contract rate over the age over over um 10 % um there just a few other things I think um if you’re in an area or if you are in or if you’re more likely to be in in your work
Unfortunately actually means you have a higher risk of being meat so not in employment education or training so that cycle of in and out of work when you’re on that well the that end of the labor market means you’re just more susceptible for being out of work and
Out of education and um it’s also linked because younger workers who are in insecure worker you’re also more likely to have um lower um qualifications or no qualification um but they’re also more lik to experience mental health problems and we have found that um 29 young people in insecure work are 29% more
Likely to experience mental health problems than those in permanent work so I think the um urgency to do something is quite clear because we’re seeing the impact po mental health is having on young people who are in in Co but then also in Co and in insecure work um and
Just also to say just just lastly that the um the the cost of living crisis I think for us for you Futures Foundation has really made this even more urgent because young people have been dealing with high food prices for a long time even before the Ukraine um was invaded
By Russia and so Energy prices went up and they’ve been dealing with high housing costs while also being in um insecure work and um having a lower wage overall and having a less entitlement to um the welfare system so the benefit system so they are kind of at that lower
End of um support but then also pay hours Etc and um sometimes there’s that narrative again that that this is okay and this is normal book for us this is not normal at all so I think um for you Future Foundation it’s a really good report we’re really excited to see this
Being put out there and we are really Keen to see an employment Bill especially since young people get so much more likely to um experience in Secure work thank you thanks Andrea that that’s really helpful and there’s certainly many points in there that we’ll get into bit
Further I think when we get into um the the discussion itself but but for now Paul uh I’d like to get your Reflections Paul S from the center for cities it was really important for us I think to to to get um the kind of perspectives of um
Someone like Paul and an organization like the center of cities who who spent many years analyzing the performance of UK cities and and city regions so Paul it would be great to get your um Reflections on how you see this interaction between Place job quality and and and outcomes playing out across
The country certainly and good afternoon everybody and thank you very much for having me I think there’s there’s one part of the report which um which we we can explain and it’s interesting to see and then there’s one part which actually is much more more puzzling be great to
See more work on it so let me start with the one which uh we can’t explain and one is and that is the general level of insec work that we see and the variance that we see across the country I think a lot of the patterns that we see there is
Down the ability of different places and the attractiveness of different places to attrac in high skilled work so when we were when we see places like like Cambridge especially within the came be area or London for example the levels of insecure work being a little bit lower
Because being able to track in those high paid jobs the other end of the labor market that then necessarily shrinks the amount of or the share of insecure work that exists because of being attracting these these high paid jobs and so that’s clearly one of the
Big drivers that we need to try and Tackle uh for these places is how do you then try and reduce the barriers to tracting these highly paid jobs in other parts of the company where they don’t exist you know reducing the share of insecure work that is present indeed
That is what the leveling up white paper was setled to do has made a great deal of progress since but that is what is the heart of what is trying to achieve and that is ultimately what the maral strategy should be trying to do too the
Element which I think is uh is surprised within that is even within that uh more in levels of insecure work or in in more uh insecure uh industries that you still see that variation across the the combined authorities I think that that one is is much more of a conundrum in
Terms of why that happens so there is a know broader strategy that can be taken in terms of tracking in those High pay jobs what you do about within those sectors I think is a very interesting one why we see that geography I don’t think I haven’t got any good answers to
That we great to have a chat about that but clearly there’s some very interesting policy recommendations that set out about what Mayes can do to try and reduce that and certainly I think having that Baseline compared to other combined authorities is very very helpful because then it allows Mayors to
Actually say well we are above the average or below the average and it gives a real sense of comparability to understand where it is that they need to go so uh very useful addition to the debate and look forward to further discussions thanks Paul that’s great uh
And just finally then I’m going to invite Fiona Aldridge from the West Midland’s combined authority to give her thoughts uh on the report and of course Fiona you’re trying to Grapple and address these kinds of issues issues firsthand uh every day so it’ be great
To get to get your sense of the analysis and and what this picture looks like within within the West Midlands yeah thank you very much I think I’d like to Echo first of all what Andrea said that this is a really good report but at the
Same time it’s really awful as well that actually within the West Midlands we are really focused on delivering inclusive economic growth for all our residents and this report clearly shows that we have a a long way to go and we really need to focus on ensuring that people
Are not just at work and we have some challenges around unemployment and inactivity but when they are employed and most adults in the region are that they are employed in good well-paid work that will enable them to thrive and and that’s a a key ambition um for us so
It’s not been easy reading um insecure work in the West Midlands combined Authority area is 21% so that’s above that national average and certainly not a a league table that we would want want to be um at the top of I suppose for us
A lot of the focus that we’ve had on um good work has been around our employment and skills levers um so we have devolved skills funding through the Devolution deal that um we recently secured we’ve got um some co-commissioning responsibilities around employment support uh we’ve got some um responsibilities around careers but and
And there is absolutely more that we can do and should do this space but but one of the things that really struck me from the report and also from the different geographies within our combined Authority area where we’ve got a particular issue is that as much as we
Need to double down on our support for individuals we also really need to focus on the quality of work available for people to move into I I know we’re going to come on to it later but tomorrow’s Autumn statement is expected to have a whole set of back to work measures and
That will include support for individuals but if we don’t impr improve the quality of work that is available then it can often be a very rational choice for people not to step into employment or not to progress into employment so I think a real challenge
There for us we know as a region that our pay is lower than um the UK average and that has been something we’ve been really focused on so how do we support those people in low paid work to progress through um our skills offer through support around in work
Progression and what this report helpfully does is say yes lope pay is an issue but it’s not the whole issue and there are some broader um things to do um around broader quality of work now as Mayors and I absolutely agree with Paul that Mays have a a key uh responsibility
Here and there are various funding parts and there are various levers that that we can deploy um there are many things as well where um we don’t have those levers and it’s useful to have recommendations for national government as well as for regional government but I’m really conscious that apart from our
Direct impact that Mayors can be really powerful as well in their leadership and convening roles so thinking about what we can do in our procurement what we can do by working with employers within our regions what we can do to tie um employment and good quality employment
To our business support as well as our skills provision um are all things that we’re going to do really well timed report from the Work Foundation for us we’re currently expanding our skills strategy into an employment and skills strategy so we’re definitely Keen to take on these recommendations um and
Happy to um answer questions and join in the discussion later brilliant thank you for your honor if I can ask all of our panelists now to uh to turn their cameras back on we will uh we will open out that conversation um really really helpful contributions from
Everyone very very grateful for you to uh to you for for joining us this after afternoon and and just reminder to everybody who is watching if you do want to ask a question of anybody on the panel today please do use the the Q&A function to get the conversation moving
Paul I thought I might turn to you first um to sort of set perhaps some of the the the the bigger picture scene here um for some of our combined authorities across across England now many years ago you did a study at the center fa cities
Didn’t you you led a study looking at the last 100 years of of changing Urban economic performance um across the country and trying to kind of understand why we see different patterns of economic activity and I just wondered what role you thought some of that economic Legacy through the 20th century
Into the 21st century might actually be influencing the picture that we see today when it comes to insecure and low quality work i’ love that report B I’m really glad that you’ve you’ve highlighted it so the as you said we looked at a 100 Years of of change went
Back in 1911 census and then tried to see what were the patterns of performance back in 1911 and how did that then Trace through to how Place performed day one of the key things that we we saw was that there was two routs that places had had gone through over
That time but either reinvented their economies so they know job losses in certain areas of the economy and then see the frontier of the economy grow in their area or they or theyve done a separate route which was replicated our economy so they’ lost one set of low
Skill jobs but then replaced them for another set of low skill jobs so like swapping uh Co mines for call centers for example in doyard distribution centers and it’s certainly it’s those place that been on that pattern for a long time these cycles of low skill work
Which are the ones where we’ expect to see a greater amount of insecure work in place to dat and the key challenge there the key reason why we see this is because of the benefits that different places offer to businesses in terms of tracking and investment so if you think
About places further south in particular they offer access you know offer access to lots of high skilled workers and access to a network of other high skill businesses too and and high skill businesses come and invest there despite the cost of doing so they pay premium to
Get access to to those types of locations but further north the the U the benefits that places for the LA offer because they do and they do attract in business investment we see lots of jobs there is that they offer access to access again but access to
Lots of cheap land and access to it a cheaper Workforce now clearly that then attracts in a certain type of business which tends to bring in with a higher degree of insecure work and the key thing for uh for Combined authorties across the country is about trying to
Sort break a cycle where in that cycle of of of constantly um not Reinventing their economy but seeing the same thing over and over again is trying to break that to trying to track in these higher paid Industries with with with it to bring higher paid jobs
But also more secure jobs too and so any Focus so we that government policy has uh and something might come out not to sa tomorrow or not is we now apply something called the the Nissan test now what does that mean well it means that if we think about Nissan you know
Located in sundland everybody uh knows that well um Nissan is has done something quite interesting in that yes it’s located in sundland and has over 7,000 jobs there but they tend to be low skill jobs look at the higher skill element of what Nissan does it puts them
Further south the engineering goes into Cranfield and the design goes into Paddington in London now Len has done that SP because of the benefits that Cranfield and London offers relative to what sundland offers and so the Nissan test then is if a policy is going to come into place think about free ports
Or think about investment zones would it change Nissan’s mind would it mean that Nissan would the high skilled stuff and Sun as well as the low skilled stuff and if the answer to that is no then the policy is not going to achieve what it
Is that been trying to set out and that applies in terms of number of high skill jobs the way that apply in terms of the share of insecure workers well that’s really that’s really interesting Paul um Andrew from from your perspective just to bring you in on
This on some of the things Paul’s just been reflecting on there because you mentioned in your comments um about potential scarring effects for young people of being in in more insecure jobs and I suppose in in both the Quant itive and qualitative work we’ve done we
Clearly see that the longer you spend in these kinds of jobs the worse and and and more pernicious some of the the impacts can be on an individual and I suppose if if Paul’s writing his analysis there around essentially local economies replicating low value ad low quality job um kinds of activities in
Their space then what what you end up getting is young people being essentially stuck or or faced with a dilemma of having to kind of move somewhere else if they’re able to in order to secure more uh or better pay and more secure employment yeah I think it’s a really
Good question because there’s I think there’s a couple things I was thinking about this is we do know that young people from an ethnic minority background are actually really more likely to be in insecure work but they’re also more likely to live in cities with really good local economies
As well so there’s something else going on within a local economy for some certain groups because they’re just just so much more likely to leave education further education and not find a really good job so we have a connected Futures area in Brent and they really look
Looking at that where we are funding the connected Futures fund we’re funding um Partnerships in each area to look at why young people are unable to inter employment or into sustainable unemployment and some of them are actually looking at Employers in some of the areas and saying you know why are
You less likely to actually um um to employ young people with with good skills and Brent is one of those areas that looking at that as a as a question but then we have Hall and Blackpool and their question is why are certain young people unable to find work and Paul has
An apprenticeship they have a of apprenti ships invol but their young people are not entering those for some reason and for them it it has some of this related to skills and also just access to the employers employers do not think necessarily that some of these
Young people can do the jobs and I think that was just the one thing to mention that there’s so many different things going on within a within a local economy as well and I think um specifically for young people in the scarring Effect one thing that we have noticed is that if
The um if there’s falling unemployment benefits relative to average income average average wage um what is your incentive one to come off unemployment if you’re a young person and you’re already earning well under the U minimum wage but then also if your other options are other insecure work there’s no
Reason for you to move you’re going to stay you’re still going to stay in insecure work so I think that’s to Paul’s point that if your local economy is just prevalent low insecure low paid insecure work for some of these young people there’s no option they they continually stay in insecure work and
For some of these young people they don’t want to move and I get it you shouldn’t have to move I mean forgive my acccident I clearly moved but you shouldn’t have to move and you don’t necessarily want to move to go and to find really good work but um they and
They rightly say to us we we work with our future voices group they right they say I want to stay where I grew up and my parents were able to stay where they grew up so I would like to stay where I grew up so um and some of them simply
Can’t afford to move because it’s really expensive to move to London it’s really expensive to move to Manchester especially with higher housing cost so I think it’s um it’s a conundrum for some of these young people that they it is it is this idea of they’re stuck and
There’s no other options for good work and we we were hopeful during Co that even postco there would be more online jobs more remote work so that some of these young people with good skills could get remote work but um we are already seeing a return to um the
In-person workplace for some of these young people in there who they work for so that that’s really helpful Andre and I want to come back to a couple of points that you mentioned there around Mobility um uh in particular um and uh and potentially around skills as well
Later in the conversation but if you want to just to come come to you and and given your role within the West Midlands is is Paul’s sort of Reflections there about economic Legacy um something which which you s of recognize in in in a sort of regional sense and obviously as part
Of your opening Reflections you were talking about sort of almost connecting the skills work to employment and Border economic strategy as as well which which must be an important part of of of tackling some of the challenges that both Paul and Andrea have discussed so far yes absolutely recognize what what
Paul has said and that’s why as a region we’re doing quite a lot of work to develop and Implement sort of medium-term economic strategy that is focused on eight cluster areas where we think there’s most potential for economic growth and employment growth but importantly they’re kind of high
Value added where we feel that we’ve got some Regional strength it’s really important to think about where your economy has been rather than just everybody deciding they want to be you know the best in a particular sector and there’s clearly in the middle of the country some things that we are never
Going to be strong at um in the West Midlands um but you know we’ve had a historical base around automotive and so we’re developing um our economy around EVS for example and so thinking about what the realistic transition is there very much wanting to attract high value
Jobs to the region and our challenge therefore is how do we ensure that our residents students have the high level of skills and qualifications needed to meet those jobs and at the minute we have a lower than average qualifications profile and we are very much focused on
Ensuring that um our Workforce is more highly skilled um you know 80% of the 2035 Workforce has already left school so while there are things that need to happen in in your initial education actually thinking about how we up skill res skill retrain adults um is really
Important but adults are only going to engage in learning and training if they can see that sort of more immediate benefit they’ve got a whole host of other things going on and so the what we’ve really been able to do through our devolved skills funding is tie the
Training that we offer to good employment opportunities within the region people can see see the jobs and see a pathway to them for someone like them then they’re more likely to engage and we’ve had some success but as you’ll see from from the figures um published
We’ve got a long way to go but very focused on on achieving that goal fantastic and and actually if you want know well while you have the floor we do have a question um from a participant which is which is essentially asking around the role of short-term contracts
In public sector organizations in the extent to which that is causing a kind of sense of of insecurity for for for many public sector jobs I’m not expecting you to be able to comment on that across the board of the public sector but I just wonder whether that is
Something which within the West Midlands you are sort of engaging with Partners around in terms of the quality of employment provision within the public public sector within within the West Midlands yeah I mean that the public sector is a major employer within the region and it is a major spender within
The region and as much as we need to think about and play a leadership role in every part of the economy there are more immediate things we can do with who we employ how we employ them and what we do through our contracts um that’s true
For us in our skills Provisions so we invest about 170 million pounds a year that needs to be with good employers and with people that can connect to good jobs and actually I work with local authorities I work with NHS um and our work ourselves as Employer all has to
Reflect that we can’t expect other people to do what we are not doing there is more to do absolutely and there’s some really difficult challenges about local Authority financing at the moment uh but we have to it it is short term to pass that on to our residents and our
Workers who are then less able to thrive and what you see really clearly in a combined it area is if you don’t deal with an issue from one particular perspective you deal with it from another so if people are in poor quality work you see that in your health figures
Or you see that in your homelessness figures or you see it in other figures and and so there is a way in which in a play Spas level whether that’s combined Authority or not things feel more holistic you’ve got more levers to do something about although it’s you know
Arguably still relatively few but it the the focus on prevention on good quality from the outset becomes even more important fantastic yeah and I will definitely come back to you later to ask about um the future of devolution and other levers which which city regions might benefit from um but but in the
Meantime Paul we’ve had another question which I think is directly back to you really around are there examples of other policies that have undergone the Nissan test and have passed that is a good question the short answer that probably is is no um actually we can probably expand a little
Bit on that I think if you look at what’s happened in Birmingham and Manchester in the 1990s they both independently took out took on a suite of policies which were designed to improve the performance of their City centers so in Birmingham you had the hyri initiative in the late 80s which
Kicked off all of the work that’s happened in Birmingham city center in the early 90s Manchester came together and uh created a Development Corporation and had a real sort of focus on Manchester City Center even before the IRA bom went off in 96 which is usually
What people Point as to be the turning point for Manchester City Center and the result of that now is that their City centers have grown at quite some incredible rates you know their City Center economies performed very well as a result so lots of jobs there lots of
High paid jobs there in particular and we’ve seen this in those places where as other places in recent decades these high skilled high paid jobs you know locating within City Center locations I think the issue for a place like a Manchester of bur is that while it’s
Seen the success in the city center their City centers still don’t play a very large role in their wider City region economies and that means that yes there are more high paid jobs but certainly not enough high paid jobs to be spread in the prosperity as much as
We we want to so I think that focus on on the city centers the there the consistent approach to that over a number of decades in terms to try to make those places more attractive places to to do business I there’s a lot to learn from that for for other places
Which you know is very different to Enterprise zones investment zones free ports which are the types of policies that we’ve seen at a national level not only just in the last 10 years but actually in the last 30 or 40 years fantastic thank you Paul um I’m
Going to move the conversation on now because I’m I’m conscious we we’ve only got 15 minutes left of of the discussion I want to get into a little bit more about some of the the the kind of practical policy things that we might look to do in order to try and shift
Some of the patterns that we see uh across the country and in particular I want to kind of address two areas one of which is but both of which in a way have already come up through through the conversation but in a bit more detail and one is around skills in in
Particular um and we can talk a little bit about the kind of skills provision and and and and and and how that works um but to begin with Andrew I just thought I’d come to you and and and get your Reflections on whether you feel that that young people have the and
Particularly some of the young people who are perhaps from the most deprived parts of the country really have the confidence that engaging in the skills system is actually going to get them to where they might want to be in terms of employment outcomes and and what we
Might do about that if there is a gap there in terms terms of you know really believing that if if they if they do study or if they do get into an apprenticeship that actually it’s going to lead to a sustained well-paid employment opportunity thanks and I’m really happy
You brought up apprenticeships because we’ve seen for some time that um um especially even during before Co that young people were that there there was a decline in apprenticeship starts um and also certain groups are just so much more likely to leave an apprenti without
Finishing um so I do I do want we’re doing some work with on apprenticeships um currently where we’re talking to young people and we’re looking at certain groups like there’s ethnic minority groups where they’re just significantly more likely to do an apprenticeship over the age of 25 rather
Than under the age of 25 so there must be something there where there’s this expectation that apprenti for certain young people and I think there is a bit of um branding or framing around the idea that apprenti are for young people who are are um unable to go to
University or or in an area where there’s not a lot of really high paid jobs that you can get get from University and it means that certain young people are more likely to go in them than not um and that’s something we’re really exploring but I do think
There is we when we speak to young people when we speak to young people especially from marginalized groups who are from the care system they are from an e minority group or they’ve had mental health struggles or they have a disability they feel that there’s a significant disconnect with what they
Learn and what they study and what is and how their ability to find a really good job and when we’ve run we’ve run two surveys specifically to young people from minority background and the one thing we ask them for is what are you most looking for and they say a good job
All they want is a good job and all they want is do study something that helps them get a good job that and something that fulfills them so they really just want a good it’s really basic I think what young people want it’s something that we all want and they’ve also we
Also asked them what would you like the government to do and one thing that they did mention often is the ability to have um guaranteed employment support and guaranteed work experience because some of the young people they say that when they go through University or they go through um some type of training
Opportunity the first thing they’re ask if you have any work experience in this and of course they don’t they’re 19 you know they’re 19 years old and this is their first real job in the sector and if they’ve been in insecure work for a long time and they’re trying to train it
To something else I think they can they would need to see the ability that this will lead to something um and I think it’s really hard to do that when your local economy doesn’t have those jobs they don’t have the those jobs at all so
Again it gets back to my point that I think there is something we can do um from the government side about helping young people make that transition through but then again there has to be something on the local economy side that creates the jobs in the areas where
Young people want to live and not every young person wants to live in London yeah yeah you know it would be great to get to get your Reflections on on how we um essentially Drive improvements in the skills system I suppose which I know is the work which you which you’re engaged
In and obviously the the West Midlands Devolution deal is has had some uh certainly relatively exciting elements sort of brought into it around around um skills and and I suppose if if Andrew’s just been speaking there to some of the concerns about engaging young people in
In in the skills system we know of course there are other demographic groups who are more likely to be an insecure work as Rebecca was referring to earlier but who may also feel quite distant from the skills system or may find that in their engagement with the welfare system that there are clashes
There between what they need to do in order to receive Universal Credit versus being able to attend training and skills so your sense of of how we can kind of stitch This Together better and and and the work that you’re doing regionally to to connect with some of those
Communities yeah so we’re trying to create an integrated employment and skills system for the region the idea that you would separate them out is is is just mad really so of course people get involved with learning for other reasons than to get a good job but actually as Andrea says lots of people
Just want a good job and and that’s a that’s a really good ambition to have isn’t it since we had devolved skills funding in 2019 we’ve therefore really focused on understanding our labor market understanding our employment opportunities and as kind of future opportunities as well as current ones
Where we want the economy to go as well as well as where it is and then to make sure that we are buying really good skills provision that helps people get from where they are to good jobs within the region now that is so much more than buying qualifications and the national
System bought qualifications we’ve moved to um thinking about one of the programs of learning and support that will help you get a job and that that often is about work experience it’s about mentoring and coaching it’s around helping with some of the costs it’s you know if you’re doing something on
Construction it’s about getting license to work on a site so those overall programs really help and we still have massive inequalities in who accesses learning and training but what we are finding is that with a focus on outcomes and support for people into good jobs really strong connections with employers
Actually we are helping more people get into jobs so our skills provision looks quite different now so it’s much more focused on Regional economic priorities it is of course focused on making sure that people have the the basics and the foundations but then giving them a really clear pathway to good jobs that
Are appearing in the the region and and some of that’s a skills provision careers um is also really critical people need to know what the jobs are and how to get to them and what they need so so so we’re seeking to wrap this together you mentioned employment
Support we work really closely with DWP and our region and we’re always trying to be able to connect to those things I don’t think it helps that they’re very separate nationally and we’re often working despite the system we’re Hing that this Debo deal will help us get a
Bit closer to having an integrated offer but where benefits pull you away that makes it harder and if the pressure is to get into a first job any job then that can really detract from the ability to get people into a a good job a better
Job a more secure job um a better paid job and and there’s some natural tensions there which um we’ll do what we can locally but it is always good to think about what the national framework is as well that will will make that success absolutely we I mean we’ve heard
Directly from people in that situation who found themselves having to forego training courses and skills development in order to fulfill uh their job search requirements which um is clearly not really the overall aim here even from even from the government themselves um Rebecca I wanted to come to you because
I I’m I’m conscious that through the course of this conversation we’ve sort of slipped into really and a kind of an equivalence between low-skilled work and insecure work and I just think it’s probably worth challenging that a little bit isn’t it that that law skilled work shouldn’t necessarily be insecure work
Should it absolutely um and this is something that we hear quite a bit sort of in the broader landscape around this um definitely I mean there are a lot of jobs like semi- routine and routine jobs that I talked about earlier in which insecurity tends to be concentrated
They’re often equated with low skill jobs and they are not being a hairdresser requires real expertise real skill I’ve cut some hair during the covid-19 pandemic I can absolutely confirm this um but um also insecurity we find that across the board we also find that in some professional
Managerial jobs Etc um mostly uh among people who experience other forms of Labor Market disadvantage like women uh like disabled workers Etc um so yes we’d not like to equate insecure work with um bad work necessarily or with low-skilled work absolutely and I think what I would
Add to that as well is it in a sense is also reflective of a choice of how we regulate the labor market and and I suppose that’s the other area given others have mentioned around an employment Bill and and the importance of driving up employment standards uh
That I wanted to cover off in this part of the discussion and Paul I wonder if I bring you in because one of our recommendations in the report and across a number of Work Foundation outputs is around strengthening employment regulations to to try and um get rid of
Some of the or curb some of the more pernicious elements of one-sided flexibility would you have concerns about the what the impact of of some of those changes could be on some of our more struggling City region economies and and what would you say about how we
Might Square some of that well certainly there’s a there’s a question about what impact it has and business is particular if we are talking about low skilled inse secure work not the point that You’ just made there re well but in terms of that that low skilled in scho work businesses
Have a choice between employing a person or actually going employing a machine to do that that work instead and so is a there’s a question of well if we then strengthen the rights there does that then mean that we then employ fewer people that sort of message was well
Concern was something that was was in place around when the national minimum wage was reported and that something that doesn’t seem to have have happened but it is something we need to be aware of that we do exist in the world of tradeoffs and by by changing this thing
Doesn’t then have unended consequences it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it but I think it probably means you need to have a a secondary strategy which then goes back to what you saying about skills pen which is if that is going to happen what are we going to do to try
And deal with that and I think and I think ultimately these talk types of of interventions are hopefully short term and there’s a longer term Intervention which is how do we try and give people the skills that they need so they’re not then working in in particularly low
Skilled in Secure work but actually got the skills to go on to takeing a job which is potentially more secure and so the I sort of say that recommendation is being more of a shortterm um intervention and alongside that longer term which is ultimately what we want to
To achieve in terms of boosting the number of these more secure jobs in in city regions across the CL yes absolutely I mean def definitely not mutually exclusive um policy Ambitions while you have the floor Paul um I’m just I’m Keen to move us on as well to
Whether we should be optimistic or pessimist istic around the kinds of jobs we might see created in in the future and I suppose particularly in those places where um we do see concentrations of insecure work at the moment given Trends around Net Zero or AI in automation what’s your sense of whether
The kinds of jobs that we’re likely to see created in the future are more or less likely to to offer the kinds of security that ideally we would like to see them offer Mr ball time I hope we’re not going to be beheld of this in in 20
Years time well the way that I think generally we’re optimistic and the reason for that is because if you look back and we’ve done some work on this in the past to to the types of jobs that have been lost and created over the last century you see that know Innovations
Have destroyed a lot of jobs so you know we go to a a cash machine now rather than going to get a tet account I our cash out for example we switch along Street RS through however councils do it but once upon a time with someone going
Through with a uh with a gas light and literally lighting up all of the street laps and yet despite that despite the destruction of those jobs we’ve got many more jobs now than what we did in the past because when these jobs get destroyed there were jobs that are
Created in other areas as the economy develops I would be hopeful that you know the developments that we see in the coming decades Will Follow That Trend that yes there will be certain jobs that will be destroyed or automated should I say destroyed sounds a bit dramatic
Doesn’t it uh automated but there be other jobs that will be cre that we just can’t even fathom what they will be um as yet I think the challenge though from a geography perspective is how well will places that traditionally have struggled that have replicated their economy be
Positioned retracting these new jobs and when you look at you know where the new economy jobs are today those cut cutting ed jobs that we think are going to drive growth tomorrow they tend to be in in places that traditionally had stronger economies rather than weaker economies
And that all comes back to the relative benefits that they offer business you know if these plac are offering access to lots of high skilled workers and a network of other high skilled businesses they’re a much better place to be attracting in these high skilled jobs than places that are offering access to
Lowcost land and and a pool of of lower low skilled workers and it’s that element the skilled element in particular that needs to change if these places going to go from continue to replicate their economies to actually Reinventing their economies thanks Paul that’s really helpful and and enough um crystal ball
Gazing I think to uh to adequately answer the question we’ve only got a few minutes left and and speaking of looking into a crystal ball we don’t have to look so far into the future for the Autumn statement which of course is happening um tomorrow and so I just
Wanted to to round off the conversation really with getting Reflections from from Paul Fiona and Andrew around what they’re hoping to see in the Autumn statement tomorrow that might make some positive progress um on on the kinds of issues that we’ve been talking about today so probably about between 30 and
60 seconds from each of you if that’s okay to try and get to a prompt finish at at at three o’clock but if you want I’ll come to you first if that’s right from from from a West Midland’s perspective yeah so so I think one of
The things that we are expecting to see is further details around our d Evolution deal because actually if we can pull together a set of levers um that can really make the West Midlands more attractive for businesses to invest then that enables us to kind of take a
Bit more control of of Our Own Destiny and that that is something that we think we can do we think we can do well but feel quite constrained in um there’s some trailed kind of news Trail news and everything isn’t there um about investment and I think Paul’s Nissan
Test is is really interesting there so if we are seeing government invest in particular sectors then where in the country are we seeing this are we are we still committed to leveling up and addressing inequalities or has the agenda changed and then as I mentioned earlier there has been a whole set of
Releases and and and trails around the back to work agenda and of course we want to make sure that people are supported as well as possible into jobs but those must be good jobs if we are supporting people into what is insecure work that is actually bad for them and
The issue we’ll have around work and health will be exacerbated so I think something very holistic um uh longterm and focused on addressing some of those Regional inequalities would um be really welcome fantastic thank you for your honor Andre I’ll come to you next what would a good Autumn statement for uh the
Country’s young people uh look like yeah we the young people are usually kind of at the end of an a statement or any statement they don’t they don’t get always their own section of a statement but I think if they did there would have to be um something on the wage so
Earlier they announced that they were raising the living wage for anyone over the age of 23 which isn’t very helpful when you’re under the age of 23 so I think that’s something we would be really really Keen to see some kind of movement on equalizing that so that
Young people can also benefit from higher wages and I think for that it would have all to do related to the apprenticeship wage we um we’re doing some analysis and and some work on whether or not the apprenticeship wage actually holds young people back from access some really good apprenticeship
Um and I think finally I’m also a bit concerned about the back to work scheme for young people because we do know that the um meat rate has gone up so the young people who are out of Education um employment or training has gone up and
It means that young people who are in their in their um young employment rates going up as well so those young people who are um out of Education who are really far away from learning um and are possibly on benefit to push them into insecure work to make sure they go to
Work is frightening for young people because they do some young people do suffer sometimes with um confidence they’ve been in covid they learned during covid they had no access to inperson support for a very long time and you’re going to push them into work when they probably lack the um mental
Capacity at the time because they’ve just been stuck at home and tell them that they’re forced to do this otherwise they have no money and I think that that can be really concerning for young people so I think I would hope the government would recognize that not all
Young people look the thing and that our young people have the same support as well I think it’s a really really crucial Point given the context of the last few years Paul I’ll hand over to you for the for the final word on this section so something to boost business
Investment more money for scales and more detail around Evolution with my three asks admirably concise um thank you very much uh Paul and to all of our contributors today thank you to Rebecca who’s LED uh our analysis uh on insecure work more broadly over the last three
Years and and and in producing um the analysis um that you’ve heard about today um at the Work Foundation we’ve got a busy program of of research and events through the remainder of 20123 we’ve got some new analysis coming out shortly looking at how we might reform uh zero hours contracts while retaining
The benefits of flexibility uh in the labor market uh and you can sign up already to our next event uh which is on Tuesday the 12th of December um to coincide with the latest labor market data coming out but with a specific focus on health and work all of our
Research and events are free to access um but the best way of not missing out is by signing up to our newsletter for now though thank you once again I hope you found the discussion valuable and enjoy the rest of your afternoon