Designing a data strategy for the employability sector

Understanding human psychology is invaluable when supporting someone effectively on their journey into work. Employability providers possess increasingly large datasets that, if used well, contain significant insights that could support the provision of a better service. The challenge for a sector under increasing pressure is knowing how to extract meaningful direction from the mountains of data at their fingertips.

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Solving unemployment at scale – a response to ONS data

As the ONS has reported, unemployment is rising. The 16-24 age group, who typically occupy roles in some of the worst hit sectors including hospitality, entertainment and the arts, have been particularly affected. However, the spike in unemployment caused by COVID-19 is pan-generational. In August 2020, the claimant count reached 2.7 million people, an increase of 120.8% since March 2020. Notably, there is a significant rise in the number of people unemployed for up to six months, up 202,000 over the year to 988,000. This poses an additional challenge; it’s widely recognised that the longer someone is out of work, the harder it is for them to re-enter the workforce.

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Skills sector is vital to the Covid-19 unemployment fall-out

GDP is sharply down, and unemployment is rising. Big sectors which have helped many enter the labour force such as hospitality are hard hit and not likely to perform the same role in the next recovery. How bad could unemployment become, and what can we do to arrest its growth and help the out of work redeploy their skills? In this piece we look at the ONS forecasts, compare them with previous recessions and recoveries and seek to draw conclusions relevant to skills training.

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