London's recovery starts with you
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618 Londoners have responded | 07/08/2020 - 01/10/2020
Discussions
Good work for all Londoners
Unemployment is rising steeply in London with 1.1m jobs at risk. London had 1.07 million furloughed employees and 433,000 on the self-employed equivalent, the highest number amongst all regions in the UK. Some groups of people are especially vulnerable, including young people, BAME, clinically vulnerable, women and the low paid and low skilled. For these groups, the risk is that prolonged unemployment could lead to long terms implications for their future earnings, employment prospects, and health and wellbeing. Structural challenges in society predating the COVID-19 crisis remain and need to be addressed, including income inequality. For example, once housing costs have been accounted for, London’s income inequality is almost twice that of the rest of the UK. Read more about the context for this mission.
Mission: “No Londoner, particularly those disproportionately affected by the pandemic or Brexit is left without access to education, training or a job opportunity.”
We’ll need to work together so that:
- Short term - all Londoners can access the support they need to gain good jobs
- Medium term - rising levels of unemployment are reversed over the next two years
- Long term - more working families are lifted out of poverty
Areas of focus might include:
- Skills and training to support Londoners into new jobs, such as industry training and lifelong learning opportunities
- High quality advice and support to get Londoners into work, such as support for newly unemployed adults
- Supporting living wage jobs and ways to progress
What do you think of this mission? Is there anything critical to London’s recovery missing from this mission? What does this mean for you personally and your community? What actions or interventions would have the most impact? How will we know that we’ve succeeded? Who has a role to play to meet this challenge?
Summary
Thanks everyone for your helpful comments in this discussion. Several of you mention that the draft missions are too broad. The policy and recovery teams have been thinking about how they can amend these missions to be more specific and time-bound, but still bold, ambitious and realistic. The most famous example of a mission is the one for the USA to put a person on the moon by the end of the 1960s. It should be obvious whether a mission has been achieved or not and by when.
Part of making these missions more specific involves acknowledging that we can't do everything through the recovery programme. That doesn’t mean that if something isn’t a mission it isn’t important. City Hall and London Councils will continue to work on areas that aren’t missions but are important to recovery.
The recovery team and policy teams have used your feedback to refine this mission to supporting Londoners into good jobs in sectors key to driving London’s economic recovery by 2025.
An example of how we may achieve this mission is to establish sector specific London ‘Academies’. These could focus on Londoners most affected by the pandemic to train or retrain, gain skills and move into sectors such as digital, health and social care, the green economy (low carbon and environmental goods and services sector), and creative and cultural industries. Academies could facilitate the delivery and coordination of careers services, skills provision, employment, self-employment and apprenticeship opportunities for Londoners. Collaboration between employers, education and training providers, voluntary and community sector, City Hall and local authorities is key to make this a success.
What do you think about this revised mission and academy proposal? What other ideas do you have that might help to achieve this mission? Do you feel the sectors identified are the right ones? Are there any others we should be considering?
The discussion ran from 07 August 2020 - 07 March 2021
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Log into your accountLeccybello
Community Member 4 years agoCelebrate and make good use of the wealth of experience available in older people. Ensure ageism is eliminated in the job application process..
Show full commentCelebrate and make good use of the wealth of experience available in older people. Ensure ageism is eliminated in the job application process..
Show less of commentAnonymous - account deleted
Community Member 4 years agoGrants to help those from different socio ecoonomic background sbe able to further their education and universities and higher education colleges having better links with industry. They always did in the past. Companies like Makers academy...
Show full commentGrants to help those from different socio ecoonomic background sbe able to further their education and universities and higher education colleges having better links with industry. They always did in the past. Companies like Makers academy have a very interesting business model that woudl work for many different industries that require training. Real innovation is required here. Experiment and see and work with industries and comanies that do this well
Show less of commentpriyasol
Community Member 4 years agoMore support for students out of university to get a job. Many of us are completely left in the dark, and with COVID the situation has obviously gotten worse. Perhaps more opportunities and support from the public sector.
Show full commentMore support for students out of university to get a job. Many of us are completely left in the dark, and with COVID the situation has obviously gotten worse. Perhaps more opportunities and support from the public sector.
Show less of commentPF2347
Community Member 4 years agoWorkers should be given a chance to show what they can do. No matter how qualified, skilled or experienced you may be you currently still can't even get a foot in the door.
Show full commentWorkers should be given a chance to show what they can do. No matter how qualified, skilled or experienced you may be you currently still can't even get a foot in the door.
Show less of commentsomerset67
Community Member 4 years agoZero-hour contracts should be forbidden by law as they do not allow any planning for those people - I have suffered them for almost four years.
Show full commentZero-hour contracts should be forbidden by law as they do not allow any planning for those people - I have suffered them for almost four years.
Show less of commentSpicy
Community Member 4 years agoLocal access to information is absolutely key, the question is - do we have the data?
Job opportunities - what's available now, job growth areas- future jobs, hard to fill vacancies.
Identifying skill gaps - what training is needed now...
Show full commentLocal access to information is absolutely key, the question is - do we have the data?
Job opportunities - what's available now, job growth areas- future jobs, hard to fill vacancies.
Identifying skill gaps - what training is needed now and in the future.
Identifying opportunities created from the new way of living in a Covid safe way.
Nothing new really but up to date information about job vacancies, growth areas, skill needs and hard to fill vacancies will be critical.
Ive been working in employment/ unemployment, education and skills arena for 25 years and still individuals can't get easy access to this data.
Employers with jobs must be involved.
Show less of commentNie
Community Member 4 years agoSupport entrepreneurship! We need more help for those who wish to set up their own business.
Show full commentSupport entrepreneurship! We need more help for those who wish to set up their own business.
Show less of commentLee43
Community Member 4 years agoThis is a worthy set of national objectives for the country, but not sufficiently specific or up-to-date for London.
What we are seeing as the Covid lockdown is eased is that many significant employers are finding that office-based staff...
Show full commentThis is a worthy set of national objectives for the country, but not sufficiently specific or up-to-date for London.
What we are seeing as the Covid lockdown is eased is that many significant employers are finding that office-based staff work equally or more efficiently and are more productive when working from home - and they like doing so - hence by dispensing with their (central and City of London) office blocks that have exorbitant rents they can save a lot of money / increase profits. Thus far less people will be coming into London to work and office blocks will be deserted - huge job opportunities to convert these into homes in which people could live.
The emphasis on training and re-training is also not as relevant to London - lots of well educated and fully trained people will unfortunately be made redundant, so the emphasis needs to be on developing new and different types of jobs for this group to do and attracting the providers of these jobs to London.
Show less of commentGiacomo
Community Member 4 years agoI must say this is the poorest chat site I have ever chatted two, my second hand car sales has more followers,
Mr Khans policies and ideas reflect the dullness of this site.
Show full commentI must say this is the poorest chat site I have ever chatted two, my second hand car sales has more followers,
Mr Khans policies and ideas reflect the dullness of this site.
Show less of commentBigcity
Community Member 4 years agoThe emphasis in the strategy is 'getting a job' - recognise and support reasoning behind this - BUT - what about entrepreneurial behaviour? Start ups? Small businesses? Working on the side? Markets? What about 'not getting a job but getting...
Show full commentThe emphasis in the strategy is 'getting a job' - recognise and support reasoning behind this - BUT - what about entrepreneurial behaviour? Start ups? Small businesses? Working on the side? Markets? What about 'not getting a job but getting a living' as being the strategy.
Show less of commentanjasaunders
Community Member 4 years agoI agree, getting a living is the key. It is time to become more flexible, flexible hours, flexible transport and work locations, new types of work and businesses. We need more small scale projects that are supported and coordinated by the...
Show full commentI agree, getting a living is the key. It is time to become more flexible, flexible hours, flexible transport and work locations, new types of work and businesses. We need more small scale projects that are supported and coordinated by the Councils and that are involving people locally. A basic wage in return for some community service would allow people to further themselves and society in creative and productive ways.
Show less of commentCarol2R
Community Member 4 years agoIt is time to attack precarious employment, making changes to the law if needed. Top of the list is ending the risible claims from Uber and its like that they are a "technology" company, not a transport company and that they do not have...
Show full commentIt is time to attack precarious employment, making changes to the law if needed. Top of the list is ending the risible claims from Uber and its like that they are a "technology" company, not a transport company and that they do not have employees, just "self employed contractors." It is a nasty fiction and must end.
It is also time to end practices (and changes in the law may be required) of so called "agency" work, with one or two people on the payroll of each agency. It is a means to underpay taxes and also contributes to precarious employment.
The practice of being paid in dividends rather than salary -- another legal tax dodge -- also needs to end.
Show less of commenttamaragalloway
Community Member 4 years agoI agree.
Show full commentI agree.
Show less of commentNefertari
Community Member 4 years agoI would have expected you to be doing all this already - skills & training, advice & support and ensuring everyone has a living wage are all basics!
Show full commentI would have expected you to be doing all this already - skills & training, advice & support and ensuring everyone has a living wage are all basics!
Show less of commentAnonymous - account deleted
Community Member 4 years agoAdult education is prohibitively expensive. There's no regulation on teaching standards, only on exams. There's a plethora of colleges offering every course imaginable - but few are of any quality and those that are of a good standard are...
Show full commentAdult education is prohibitively expensive. There's no regulation on teaching standards, only on exams. There's a plethora of colleges offering every course imaginable - but few are of any quality and those that are of a good standard are fully booked or very expensive. The added costs to studying - time off work (reduced income), textbooks, travel to and from venue, etc. etc. make it expensive. Yet anyone wanting to change career, improve their prospects or find a new interest that are over 25 need to be wealthy. I'm not talking about learning basic English or maths - those schemes are available and in fact easily found online. (See comments on digital access). I'm talking about vocational courses or learning crafts and more complex subjects.
Learning isn't an equal sport.
Show less of commentBigcity
Community Member 4 years agoThis is a very good point. Creating a London Learning Zone/scheme would be extremely helpful and boost the economy no end I honestly think.
Education and training has been turned into a business with unhelpfully high fees 0- a lot of...
Show full commentThis is a very good point. Creating a London Learning Zone/scheme would be extremely helpful and boost the economy no end I honestly think.
Education and training has been turned into a business with unhelpfully high fees 0- a lot of people aren't getting the training which would support their career and managing change so the argument they get it back eventually doesn't hold true - it is too big a bill too far into the future, being paid by people who aren't getting the pay rises and job security that a more middle aged group of workers may have enjoyed previously.
Whether the London Assembly could provide support I don't know, but there needs to be some serious conversations with larger businesses with resources who have (even unconsciously in some cases I accept) allowed local Londoners to bear the brunt of costs of education and training and are taking advantage of the workforce.
Fees/up front costs need to be substantially reduced.
Training needs to be in place before someone leaves their jobs, possibly as part of the redundancy package where it is about restructuring not because the business has gone or is going bust as such. Perhaps Unions could help in negotiating that or fees reduced for people recently made unemployed.
Show less of commenttuttobene
Community Member 4 years agoDefinitely a learning zone or university classes that are practical or free advice on how to re-train. We called it "earning or learning" in Australia. I agree with bigcity, my tech/accounting company are going through restructure...
Show full commentDefinitely a learning zone or university classes that are practical or free advice on how to re-train. We called it "earning or learning" in Australia. I agree with bigcity, my tech/accounting company are going through restructure/redundancies and the employee collective group have bargained in free credits for training courses to help with finding another job.
Show less of commentFrenchcath
Community Member 4 years agoI live in North London, close to the Arts Depot in North Finchley. The ground floor is a vast empty space. Why? People who work from home, freelancers, young people who want to connect for start-ups, can't. There are no space for this...
Show full commentI live in North London, close to the Arts Depot in North Finchley. The ground floor is a vast empty space. Why? People who work from home, freelancers, young people who want to connect for start-ups, can't. There are no space for this except in Central London. My daughter has to meet with her partner in cafés to work on their portfolio. This is ridiculous. This is so backwards, Central London is business orientated while the edges are totally isolated. We don't all live in Shoreditch where people can work at the Ace Hotel. Do something about people working from home. With the pandemic it is more and more the case and London will have to adapt to these new conditions: less offices more co-working spaces.
Show less of commenticundy
Community Member 4 years agoEducation and training is the key. Getting children and young adults back into schools and colleges needs to be top priority. Anything we can come up with to prevent youth unemployment soaring should be high priority, but I'm not sure how...
Show full commentEducation and training is the key. Getting children and young adults back into schools and colleges needs to be top priority. Anything we can come up with to prevent youth unemployment soaring should be high priority, but I'm not sure how we can do that locally. For example the chancellor's post furlough incentives should be biased towards young workers.
Show less of commentIhome
Community Member 4 years agoHow about sorting out the mess that is schools and childcare? Over priced and unaffordable, inflexible and childcare hours getting shorter so not even a full day at work can be covered without expensive add ons. Virtually no Holiday Clubs...
Show full commentHow about sorting out the mess that is schools and childcare? Over priced and unaffordable, inflexible and childcare hours getting shorter so not even a full day at work can be covered without expensive add ons. Virtually no Holiday Clubs for the summer period so working parents face a very difficult time with their employers.
Show less of commenttuttobene
Community Member 4 years agoI also agree with this point. Half my wage will go to rent and the other childcare. I can't afford to live with full time childcare, and can't focus on work unless I try and get childcare!
Show full commentI also agree with this point. Half my wage will go to rent and the other childcare. I can't afford to live with full time childcare, and can't focus on work unless I try and get childcare!
Show less of comment