Employers are putting less emphasis on the high-level literacy and numeracy skills of their workers, a new survey finds.
The Skills and Employment Survey (SES) has collected data from working adults roughly every five years since 1986.
The latest survey, which was carried out in 2017, asked more than 3,300 employees to report on the importance in their jobs of 36 tasks, covering activities that draw on manual, thinking as well as social skills, through questions which have been repeated in the surveys since 1997.
A paper, which is set to be presented at the Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies (LLAKES) conference at the UCL Institute of Education today (Thursday), shows that the only area where skills needs are increasing is in relation to IT and analytical skills.
Maths and English skills need falls
Firms’ use of high-level literacy and numeracy skills has fallen according to the respondents, while only computer-use and complex problem-solving skills have risen in demand since 2012.
The amount of on-the-job learning and training which workers have reported as being required to do has continued on a downward trend since 2006.
The implications of these findings for the British economy are significant, suggest researchers Golo Henseke, Alan Felstead, Duncan Gallie and Francis Green, in their paper.
‘Post-Brexit economy’
The report said: “The UK government has laid down an ambitious industrial policy to prepare the British economy for a future after Brexit. Its high skill strategy, however, relies on an assumed virtuous circle where an expanded supply of skilled workers will in the long-run result in an upskilling of the economy as a whole.
“The gathered data here suggests that this assumed connection may not be sufficient to shift the economy alone towards greater skills use.
“What is needed are longer-term, consistent political strategies that combine a focus on skills supply with some attention to demand-side developments to ensure that investments into skills supply are effectively utilised.”
