Brexit resulted in perhaps over a million going home = labour shortage. Aspirations of young people have been raised by increasing numbers of university places, thus resulting in poorly paid hard jobs having little attraction to the young – I am not criticising them for this = labour shortage.
So the paper today added butchers to the list of shortages – again not an appealing job. But we will soon see teaching added to the list as the retirement occurs in an increasingly stressful job.
So the maths is simple and has been known about for years. Time for a restructuring of the whole labour market? It is just surprising that the government seemed unaware that people are getting older!
What to do about it is more difficult as it has become urgent rather than have solutions in place 20 years ago (yes it has been known about for that long. Short term immigration is really the only immediate solution. Long term we need to move secondary and tertiary education away from the present syllabi and provide young people with the skills necessary for the modern labour market. This means being flexible, different types of jobs are expanding and declining with new ones (influencer?) appearing all the time. Coding should be as mandatory as English and Maths. Mundane jobs will have to become 4 day week at. most to attract people meaning that leisure related activities are also promoted like the arts.
I would argue for a humanities/cultural course in KS3 which gives students the tools for further study, but also a grounding in the changing history, geography, religion and culture of the British Isles, then at KS4/5 which I would merge, students could pick and mix units relating to their interests. Educationalists should stop being control freaks and let children decide what they want to learn about. I was taught nothing about weather and climate at any stage of my education as a geographer, but now am enthralled by it. Maps used to bore me silly but now I can read an OS map for hours. Should these courses be open to all – probably not as there are too many perverts around, but expand the Open University to online accredited courses. This would expand the competence level of ability at no or little cost to the government.
In many ways the University system has got out of control with institutions continually trying to expand their numbers. Let us follow the German example and encourage engineering and skills like electrician and plumbing and mechanics all of which will pay more than many University students will achieve from more obscure courses. However we should also ensure that the obscure are not deleted from the system – society needs the wide range of skills, and mental skills honed on whatever courses can often be easily transferred.