· As furlough ends, low paid and unemployed workers given the chance to gain free qualifications
· £11m funding package will support Londoners and address skills shortages in sectors key to London’s growth and recovery including the green economy
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is encouraging low paid Londoners and those facing unemployment when the furlough scheme ends to retrain for free and find good jobs in sectors with skills shortages.
London has the highest uptake of furlough in the country with around 8 per cent of eligible workers (297,100) still on furlough at the end of July 2021 against a UK average of 5 per cent. Eight of the ten local authorities with the highest furlough rates were in London. Hounslow, Newham, Barnet, Brent and Redbridge all had furlough rates of 10 per cent.
As furlough comes to an end tomorrow (30 September), there is a risk that there will be a rise in unemployment as Londoners are no longer supported by the scheme. That’s why Sadiq is providing free training to low skilled and unemployed Londoners, regardless of their prior qualifications, to help them get jobs in futureproof sectors of our economy that are vital to London’s recovery.
Earlier this month, Sadiq announced a total package of £11m to help Londoners to gain qualifications and get jobs in the hospitality, digital, creative, green and health and social care sectors. These fully funded training opportunities will be delivered through local colleges and adult education providers across the city.
While all sectors have faced challenges during the pandemic, around one in five of the jobs on furlough in London were in the accommodation and food services sector at the end of July. In the midst of this, UK businesses are facing a skills shortage caused by the perfect storm of COVID-19 and Brexit. According to the ONS, the total number of job vacancies in the UK reached a record high between June to August 2021.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan said: “The end of furlough may signal the end of a regular income for many Londoners, with hundreds of people in the hospitality and service sector finding themselves out of work.
“I’m offering Londoners the chance to retrain or upskill for free and gain qualifications in futureproof industries that are key to London’s recovery from the pandemic. This funding will help many people find their feet after what has been an extraordinarily difficult 18 months.”
Shevone Parris was made redundant at the end of 2020 due to the pandemic. Shevone has since completed a cooking course at Westminster Kingsway College and has started up her own online food business with her partner.
Shevone said: “Losing my job made me sign up for the Culinary Arts cooking course at Westminster Kingsway College. It also gave me the inspiration to set up my business, Deliciously Fresh. I suppose everything happens for a reason.”
Notes to editors
You can search for Adult Education Providers online. Contact providers directly for more information on the courses and training they offer.
Funding
- £5m will deliver the Mayor’s Academies Programme (MAP), of which £3m will support new Academy Hubs, which will bring skills providers, employers and other partners together to help tackle skills gaps.
- The MAP aims to support Londoners hardest hit by the pandemic into good jobs in the hospitality, digital, creative, green and health and social care industries. The programme will coordinate and improve the quality of training in London, including adult education, and will also help to address the employment gap between different groups of Londoners and improve diversity in these industries.
- £6m of London’s Adult Education Budget (AEB) has been made available to training providers working within an Academy Hub to provide bespoke support that will help these newly skilled people into work.
Adult Education Budget
- London’s £318m Adult Education Budget was delegated from central government to the Mayor from 1 August 2019.
- The Mayor used the AEB to fund learning for 213,480 Londoners in the first year of delegation (between August 2019 and July 2020).
- The AEB supports a diverse range of Londoners to get the skills they need for life and work. In the first year of delivery, 70 per cent of learners were women, 55 per cent were from a Black or Minority Ethnic background and the majority of learners were aged 24-49 (62%).
- Since taking control of London’s AEB, the Mayor has made training more accessible for Londoners, introducing full funding of courses for people in low paid work and enabling unemployed people or those earning less than the London Living Wage to take courses up to Level 3 regardless of prior qualifications.
- AEB learners in London usually take multiple courses. There were 424,750 learning aims enrolments in London during the 2019/20 academic year. The most frequent subject area chosen was Preparation for Life and Work, which provides valuable skills for the labour market (such as ESOL, English and Maths skills), accounting for nearly half of all aims in the AEB programme.