Nick Clegg speech on youth unemployment National Outsourcing Association comments

Nick Clegg speech on youth unemployment National Outsourcing Association comments

Martyn Hart, Chairman, National Outsourcing Association comments:

“While so 1.2 million NEETs is a bona fide tragedy, it is also a massive opportunity to build for the future.

“Offshoring succeeds because of low wages in foreign countries, and it will continue, particularly in a recession.  But not all offshoring is for reasons of labour arbitrage – companies also offshore due to a UK shortage of essential skills.  

“In the outsourcing industry, we are acutely aware of exactly where these skills gaps lie – because that’s the work that ends up offshore. With the government’s support, we should use these young people to plug the void. Get them off the sofa into IT training programmes.

“Young people are highly computer savvy already – I wonder how many hours a day young NEETs spend on Facebook? Given the opportunity, these people could fill the IT skills gap long term. So that in the future, there will be reduced need to send work offshore for skills reasons.”