Unemployment is rising and top bosses want to do something about it

Business giants have come together to find ways of hiring more people currently out of work as private sector bosses move to play a more active role in improving the state of the UK labour market. 

Company chiefs from the likes of BT, Shell, Marks & Spencer and Pret have joined a new, non-governmental ‘Employer Taskforce’ – chaired by Octavius Black CBE – to find solutions to improve people’s employment prospects. 

Bosses at the firms said they would look to help people from disadvantaged backgrounds and identify the best practice in hiring and training workers given recruitment and retention schemes were “frustratingly fragmented”. 

Marks & Spencer’s chief people officer Hayley Tayum said businesses could support people to get into work “at scale,” adding “businesses across the country have the knowledge and insight on how to successfully support people into work.”

The employer-led initiative, which is spearheaded by the Jobs Foundation, a non-profit organisation focused on job creation and employment, will bring together around 30 companies to support the UK’s weakened labour market amid rising levels of inactivity. 

The taskforce is set to address issues including a jump in the rate of youth unemployment to 16 per cent and the rise in the number of people on long-term sickness benefits since the pandemic, which has shot up by nearly 700,000. 

The Jobs Foundation’s CEO, Georgiana Bristol said: “A good job is the number one thing that we can give people to help them live a prosperous and happy life. The expertise to give more people that opportunity already exists within British business, but right now it isn’t being shared, and it isn’t being scaled. We can’t wait to change that through the Jobs Foundation Pledge.”

Reducing benefits bill becomes Labour focus

Work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden is tasked with transforming the country from a “welfare state to a working state”. 

In a Cabinet reshuffle last year, skills ministers were moved into the department from the Department of Education to re-focus the government’s ambition on getting more people into work and training. 

Sir Keir Starmer also said in a speech after the Budget that welfare reform and reducing the benefits bill were among the key ways Labour wished to drive economic growth alongside trade deals and deregulation. 

Officials are now waiting for the full publication of the Alan Milburn review into young people not in education, employment or training (Neets), with latest data suggesting there were nearly 1m young people out of work. 

The Sir Stephen Timms review into disability benefits, which is due by the end of the year, is also heavily anticipated by lawmakers and industry executives after Rachel Reeves’ £5bn cuts to payments triggered a major Labour backbencher rebellion last summer. 

A separate review by former John Lewis chairman Sir Charlie Mayfield examined workplace sickness and disability, with several proposals made for firms to take greater accountability for employees’ health. New ‘healthy working standards’ could lead firms to receive national certificates.

Speaking about the Jobs Foundation’s taskforce, Mayfield said he was pleased to see that his research was being picked up by employers. 

“It’s evident that the solution to our inactivity crisis lies in unlocking the resources, experience, and expertise of Britain’s business community,” Mayfield said.