The woman tasked with filling Britain’s skills gap is to issue a heartfelt plea to Government and industry to prevent vital experience and ability being lost forever as a result of impending steel closures.
The woman tasked with filling Britain’s skills gap is to issue a heartfelt plea to Government and industry to prevent vital experience and ability being lost forever as a result of impending steel closures.
Ann Watson, who is ceo of Semta, the employer-led not for profit organisation skilling engineering and advanced manufacturing, is ‘mortified’ by recent developments on Teesside, Scunthorpe and Scotland.
She said: “Any job losses are terrible for the men, women and families that they affect. But these job losses could prove catastrophic for industry – and the nation. This country needs 800,000 additional skilled engineers by the end of the decade – so Britain can ill afford to haemorrhage thousands of skilled workers at this critical time.”
She continued: “Every effort must be made to ensure that these workers are re-employed in jobs in sectors starved of skills. Government and industry must form a taskforce to process this transition.”
Ann, from Teesside, the daughter and granddaughter of skilled engineers herself, represents 143,000 companies in the sector.