Government support needed for skills gap

29-Mar-2012 - Last updated on 28-Sep-2021 at 09:25 GMT

Sector Skills council Improve has urged the government to “remove the shackles” from the food industry, which are currently preventing many firms from targeting a younger generation of workers to the sector.

Speaking to FoodManufacture.co.uk at the Foodex exhibition in Birmingham, Improve chief executive Jack Matthews called on the coalition to ease certain standards of compliance within the industry and allow firms to further engage with young people.

Matthews, who is also chairman of the National Skills Academy for food and drink manufacturing, believes the current standards prevented young people from gaining access to certain areas of the sector. If these were eased, this would create greater opportunities for all stakeholders, he claimed.

Also featured in the video, which followed the HR Forum seminar at Foodex, are Matthews’ thoughts on the work that still needed to be done by employers to plug the skills gap in the industry, and how long that was likely to take.

Watch out for more FoodManufacture.co.uk news from Foodex in text, videos and podcasts.

1 comment

???

Posted by susan sullivan, 31 March 2012 - 12:56 GMT

I'm not really sure what you mean. The industry is not employing older workers with some experience but those with a training need. Is the point to employ young people in order to save money? I am really angry about the attitude to older workers.

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