SCOTLAND must end the “snobbery” surrounding vocational training as the country addresses skills shortages caused by Brexit and the pandemic, a leading businesswoman has said.
Jennifer Phin, managing director of wall insulation specialists A C Whyte, said we needed a “carbon army” to help achieve our climate targets, and a “cross-sector, cross-party future-proofed action plan” to meet our strategic objectives.
Phin was speaking at an online seminar looking at what Scotland’s priorities are to meet our skills needs, including the future for apprenticeships.
She told the Scotland Policy Conference Scotland had shown global leadership with some of the most stringent net-zero targets in the world and, with investment of almost £1.6 billion in heat and energy efficient products, there was a huge opportunity for the sector.
However, that ambition had to be turned into something “tangible and achievable”, while we do not have the workforce to deliver on the targets.
“In the UK generations of trades people have been lost and until now European operatives have travelled to the UK to supplement the declining UK workforce to solve our problem, and contribute to our economy,” she said.
“They've also been instrumental in supporting the training of local people through the likes of our bespoke skills academy, but now many of them have been lost too.
“We have become a hostile territory. The impacts of Brexit whilst fully expected by industry were previously unmeasurable masked by the global pandemic.
“But as life returns to normal, the crippling effects are becoming apparent – we are in crisis.”
Phin said the skills gaps had never been so vast, and change is required in relation to the future workforce.
“We have to change the narrative, we have to drop the snobbery, and stop perceiving college vocational training as a less attractive less aspirational route.
“In construction we’re talking about the core traditional skills that underpin energy efficiency measures required for net-zero – trades and plastering, rendering, joinery, roofing, plumbing, that have job security and huge earning potential.
“And we have to encourage that demand by communicating something that's tangible and meaningful to our future generations.”
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