EEDA - East of England Development Agency

Demand for business services jobs in future

16 June 2010

Accountants, R&D staff and carers will be among the top jobs in demand over the next few years a report the East of England Development Agency (EEDA) published today concludes.

‘Skills Insight’ from the team of economic experts at EEDA, outlines the main characteristics of the labour market in the East of England and how these differ from other regions and the UK.  It also describes the key issues including evidence of market failure, and considers how the labour market and the demand for skills might change in the future.

The report shows that the business services sector will account for over half the net employment growth across the region between 2010 and 2015.

Business services includes professional services such as lawyers, as well as property-related services, R&D, recruitment agencies, cleaning companies, call centres, marketing and travel agencies. The second biggest sectors of the economy expected to grow are the retail industry and hotels and restaurants businesses.

The report shows that the structure of the labour market will move away from manufacturing, manual and lower skilled jobs in the future.  With an increased need for more highly skilled people, training is a big issue especially for young people and those with little training.

The report is highlighted in a speech by Alison Webster, EEDA’s executive director of enterprise and skills at the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) regional roadshow at the Stansted Raddison Blu Hotel today.
 
Alison Webster said:

“Ensuring businesses have access to people with the right skills is essential to the success of the economy in the East of England.  We cannot ignore the need to translate achievement at school to achievement in higher level and vocational skills. Our young people are losing out compared to the rest of the country. 

“Employers have understandably been reluctant to recruit new people during the recession. However, both those currently in work and out of work will need to update their skills to meet the demands of a changing labour market.  Training is key to a firm’s productivity so we urge companies to see how their can devise their route to success through our innovative Business Map.”

Glenn Athey, director at Insight East said:

“As this report shows, there will be a need for a range of different skills, especially in the caring and managerial areas, in the future. The service sector of the economy already employs nearly eighty per cent of the working population and is forecast to grow.  The good news is that there will be new employment opportunities across all occupations, even those in long-term decline, because of natural turnover in the labour market.”

Key facts:

• the East of England economy sustains 2,752,000 jobs. These are taking an increasingly flexible form with growing numbers of part-time and temporary employees, and self-employed
• there could be as many as 200,000 people ‘under employed’ in the East of England. Under employment is the amount of additional hours work that people already in employment would ideally like to do
• replacement demand will be largest for corporate managers (131,000), administrative and clerical occupations (93,000), caring personal service occupations (84,000) and clerical and service-related elementary occupations (74,000)
• there are approximately 160,000 employees in the East of England with skill gaps to be addressed
• virtually all of the growth in the economically active section of the population will be accounted for by the over 45s
• only about one in forty of those with no qualifications will have undertaken any training recently
• one in four of the working age economically inactive men in the 50-64 age group (162,000) do want a job
• almost half of total employment (47 per cent) is found in Hertfordshire, Essex, Southend and Thurrock. Despite this, the largest concentrations of employment at a local authority district level are in Peterborough (112,000) and Norwich (108,000).

The report is available to download on the Insight East website http://www.insighteast.org.uk

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