Chamber and committees

I know that Bee Boileau wants to comment on that, but I will add another layer. Are we marketing potential careers to our young people properly and giving them the vision of where they should be or could go? You cannot do it if you cannot see it, for want of a better phrase. What are your thoughts on that?

You know me, convener. Let me have a wee look at my papers.

Good morning. I will continue on that theme, which I thank Liz Cameron for bringing up.

We have a huge opportunity with the green economy, but we are not—as we should be doing—weaving the green economy into our education system nearly fast enough. Just last week, I was at the Kilmarnock campus of Ayrshire College, which has apprenticeship places available. I was also at some engineering works that are short of apprentices. There are higher levels of unemployment in my region.

In my view, we have all the bits and bobs there, but we are not connecting up all the elements. We have a huge opportunity with the green economy. However, to respond to Liz Cameron’s point, I do not think that we are doing that well enough. Would you agree?

One question has occurred to me—it is almost a regional question. There is a consistent draining of the workforce from rural to urban areas. What impact has Covid had on that, and what do we need to do to try to stem the flow? That question is for Liz Cameron.

We are well aware that Covid has caused significant impact on and change to working practices, including in the form of the hybrid system. I will pose a general question to everybody: are businesses managing to change at the pace that is being demanded by the workforce? Chris Brodie, do you want to start?

Sure.

It has been interesting to listen to the discussion, although it has made my questions more complicated.

I want to ask about the impact of early retirement. Tony Wilson mentioned that furlough had acted almost as a driver of early retirement. There are certain industries with a higher age demographic. For instance, a friend of mine owns a haulage company, many of whose employees are 50 plus or—Professor Fothergill mentioned this—from eastern Europe, and especially Poland, strangely enough. During furlough, a lot of those eastern Europeans went home and did not come back, because there is a shortage of drivers in eastern Europe, so the company has to pay more. After furlough, many of the drivers over 50 did not come back or came back to do only a couple of shifts a week, because that gave them a better work-life balance. As a result, the wages in that industry have grown exponentially.

I will start with you, Tony, as you raised the issue. Have you done any work on the impact that early retirement has had on specific industries?

With that issue in mind, there is the potential that a significant number of city centre offices will lie empty. I wonder whether we will end up with people moving back into city centres to live rather than to work. David, do you have any thoughts on that?

Has the Resolution Foundation done any work in the area?

Good morning, panel. On that point about the impact of long Covid on the economics of the labour market, do you agree that it is difficult for the statistics to highlight those people with long Covid who do not come into the office but who work part time from home and so are still potentially partially active? There are suggestions that 80,000-plus people live with long Covid, which presents a limitation. How do we look at the statistics and plug that point into our thinking? I will ask David Freeman, as he brought this up.