Career Czar Needed NOW!
Posted on 4:17pm, 25th July 2010 • 5 Comments
You put in a czar to sort out mega social problems (drugs, for example) – I’d argue UK careers policy and careers services are in such a mess they can only be tackled effectively at government level.
People thrive and help build the decent society we all want to live only when they feel secure about life beyond tomorrow. The way careers pan out now means too many of us are on the edge of not coping too much of the time, chronically anxious about our jobs, finances and family life.
Where should the UK be looking for the good new careers to replace the jobs we’re losing to China and India?
How can we produce financially and psychologically worthwhile careers for the many as well as the few?
Why should parents and carers have to choose between meeting their care responsibilities or paying the mortgage (which too often means they have to give first priority to their careers)?
Why should we live with shortages of electricians, plumbers etc because we haven’t yet found sustainable ways of training people for these careers?
Why do we allow school careers education programmes to be led by teachers without specialist training or resources?
Why do we encourage so many to study for degrees when we know graduate careers are in such short supply?
I’d like the Career Czar to start working on issues such as:-
- promoting a “paradigm shift” in the way the UK manages careers and our working lives, one in which human well-being and productivity are of higher national priority than narrow economic good (this isn’t so airy-fairy, the World Bank itself now works to this model)
- finding and developing new careers with decent pay for the many (these new careers may be in global warming related flood and drought protection, human demographics / workforce monitoring and management, new technology infrastructure development, etc)
- re-balancing working life within the UK, to provide more career opportunities outside London and the South East (this could mean encouraging more companies to offer more staff the option of working from home or at a distance)
- under Equal Opportunity legislation, only allowing job ads to specify academic and experience qualifications when they’re essential to do the job (eg my GP needs to be a qualified doctor but there’s no good reason for restricting admin careers to grads with degrees at 2.1 or above)
And this is only a starting point! There’s a huge amount for a Career Czar to do if we’re to rebuild sane, rewarding working lives.
Listened to Ed Balls today. He’s at least saying that safeguarding jobs and employment’s more important than getting the deficit down immediately. Wonder whether that’ll help his own career prospects!!!
MaggieMay • 27th August, 2010 at 2:27 pm
I like the idea of a Career Czar.
Wonder whether people are beginning to look more searchingly at careers and employment issues now? Fear of unemployment is so widespread now that most of us reckon the old approaches just aren’t good enough. Also, you’ve only to look at the broadsheets to realise just how angry students and their parents are getting about the ever-increasing cost of getting a degree and the very doubtful career prospects you enjoy as a graduate.
Wavywatt • 10th September, 2010 at 10:15 am
If you look at today’s Guardian (the Careers Q & A section), there’s a lot of stuff on how the new technologies could provide new jobs. The Low-Carbon Transition Plan (Dept of Energy & Climate Change, 2009) says there could be an extra 500,000 jobs in the renewable energy sector if gvernment targets are met. Here’s hoping they’re right!
Pharmacist • 14th September, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Joe Public’s coming round to this idea. Politicians running scared – it’s easier to trash careers than create new jobs, so they don’t want to know
LiverpoolLad • 7th December, 2010 at 9:33 am
Well it’s about time we had a Career Czar or something. I despair sometimes. It’s already 2.51M out of work here, when will things turn round?
Blue.Moon • 23rd September, 2011 at 11:18 am