There be job-landscape dragons ahead. Plan. Together.

It's not so hard to foresee

If we head into a jungle, there will be heat and there will be mosquitoes.? If we determine we want to head into a jungle, we don’t turn around the moment we encounter either.

If we head to the Antarctic there will be cold and there will be icebergs.? We prepare for this, and don’t turn around the moment we encounter either.

If we decide to attempt an ascent on a tall difficult mountain, it will be steep and hard.? We don’t turn around and settle for climbing to the top of a local hill instead, the moment it becomes so.

If we plan to head into a desert, we will plan for water provision and not turn around the moment we become thirsty.?

Inherent to any transition from a dominant reliance on hydrocarbons for energy, is that it will involve a change in employment roles for many.? If we decide this is something we need to do, similarly, it is not about turning around the moment this issue manifests.

Neither is it easy

There are hard choices here, as not all job roles present now will survive such a transition, and jobs means livelihoods.? Livelihoods of people we know.? Family.? Friends.? That is not a reason to stop such a transition.? It is a reason to act accordingly, with compassion, respect, and most importantly, with planning for those involved, and to explore alternative livelihoods on a timescale that gives them some chance of success.? Where there is respect as a core value, it means respecting the need to plan for these eventualities not on timescales of months, but on timescales of several years, if not more.?? Many of these things can be seen to be coming and there is no real excuse not to plan for it.

A case in point, illustrative of many similar instances, is Port Talbot.?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/19/port-talbot-steelworks-blast-furnaces-to-close-costing-almost-3000-jobs-tata

To any government, or to any large industrial manufacturer, it is clear there are increasing costs to very large-scale emissions that will increasingly affect economics of related businesses and precipitate change.?? The question is not really whether change to address this can be averted.? It is whether due attention is being given to the requirements and livelihoods of those involved in the status quo subject to change.? ?This is not something that is solely restricted to blue collar workers, white collar workers are just as thoroughly caught up in the change.?

In the case of Port Talbot, it relates to transitioning fossil-fuel based steel production to an electric arc furnace which will recycle existing steel.? As well as reducing costs, it is also estimated to reduce total UK GHG emissions by as much as 1.5%.?? To continue with those emissions is a huge cost.? To bring about the loss of 3000 jobs and the households supported, in a tight knit and dependent community, is also a huge cost.? So there is the crux of a problem.??

Avoiding change may not be possible, planning its course and duration is

There is anger and frustration, and rightfully so.? My contention here is that the 18 months warning that has been given to workers involved is insufficient.?? There could have been plans in place for five years.?? This was not an unforeseen development by anyone in the know either in the industry or those with aspirations of being informed within government.? ?

Neither is it sufficient to dump this development on the local community under the auspices of “oh but it’s required for the environment”.? That may be the case for why it needs to happen, but not its justification for the speed and warning time.? Environmental concerns are important but are not a blank cheque to bypass common human compassion and decency.

The timing of planning for the change is an independent issue.? The environmental arguments for change do not relieve employers and authorities of a responsibility to provide more warning and more options for training and relocation.? To be clear there is no wonderful happy ending where everyone falls easily into another job and everyone dances into the sunset.? This is a challenging situation.? Yet given sufficient time to plan, and assistance with retraining, people are resilient, and new opportunities exist.? The costs of providing such training are minor compared to the costs of new plant investments, and also to the costs of social and health issues relating to unemployment.

Fair warning is a simple concept

This contempt for the amount of warning provided beyond purely legal obligations is a phenomenon occurring more widely, not just within the energy transition.? It also occurred recently in East London, when Stratford Market Village closed with only hours’ notice, with leases for new tenants being signed only weeks and days before, and businesses being told to move out with just days’ notice.? This left small businesses that had invested tens of thousands, deeply out of pocket and distraught.? There is no doubt that businesses large and small are suffering, and no government is capable of averting difficulties for all businesses - but where there are difficulties emerging, this idea that warning beyond legal obligation to those involved is a secondary priority, an afterthought, is the thing to challenge.? People have the right to know and to be treated with honesty.? And for the lack of such treatment to be held to account.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68007233

The same phenomenon was evident at international level at the recent withdrawal of funding to the UNRWA, almost overnight.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68127544

That is not to say there are not issues and problems to resolve involved in the reasonings behind that.? This is always the case.?? We can’t wave a magic wand to make all the problems go away, and they can be serious ones.? The point is the amount of time involved to compassionately, respectfully, allow dependent individuals and business and agencies to adjust to the arrival of such problems, is an important consideration. ?In the case of the UNRWA, thousands of lives really were, and are, at stake.? Problems may not be avoidable.? But allowing warning time for those involved to adjust and respond to them as they arise is not some luxury.

Wakey wakey...

As we head into a transition of downshifting combustive fossil fuel use, we cannot fool ourselves that this will be without challenges for those involved in fossil fuel industries, the plants themselves, and all the secondary indirect business that build up around them.? That is not to say there aren’t new opportunities arising.?? There are, often more diffuse than in big, centralised employers, but there are opportunities.? Is that one for one replacement – maybe not, but it doesn’t seem to be far off.?

The issue is more the time lag and geographic concentration of any switch than one of new roles not being available.? The point is that these transitions do not happen instantly for individuals and businesses in any given situation.? Five years is probably a minimum and a decade is more like it.?? So it takes foresight and planning and frank communication between business and government – local and central, to achieve that transition.? To imagine that it will sort itself out is a fallacy.? To allow it to come to that is a dereliction of duty.

What is the priority...stick to it...plan pre-emptively.

At the same time, if government gets cold feet about such a transition every time fossil fuel related industrial job losses rear their head, there will be no progress on it.? It is an inevitability.? And it’s a well-worn tactic of any big industry to shout “job losses” at government every time it sees a threat to the status quo.? Politicians need to be savvy to this and develop a level of discipline to look more deeply at the subject.? Beyond ?thinking the old can continue for job reasons at the same time as demanding the new for environmental reasons.?? Which is it to be?? There is a cost to change.?

Navigating how to prepare for that cost is the way forward, not avoiding it and abandoning priorities every time it appears.? ?Proactively imagining what change is likely to happen and preparing communities and businesses on timescales that are appropriate - can be done.?? That has costs too, but less than the costs of not doing so.? These are special times, special circumstances, requiring new priorities and new efforts.

It is a transition I have had to face at a personal level myself, so it is not with a callousness of not experiencing these uncertainties that I write these things.? There are priorities to set.?? Where there are implications for jobs and especially with large, centralised employers, the response is not to backpedal every time they come under threat, but to foresee such situations – they are often foreseeable – and to plan accordingly on 5-10 year timescales that gives individuals and communities the best shot at adjusting. ?

No crystal ball, but some things are clear now

To be fair, they are not always foreseeable, but a very large contingent are.? Is there really no strategic thinking going on at high enough political levels to imagine these and prepare accordingly?? Perhaps there is, but it is that early interaction and ongoing dialogue with business in a meaningful concrete way, to set policy and retraining opportunities, and yes assist financially in appropriate ways, that seems to have fallen between the cracks. ?Assisting not to prop-up that which seems certain to fall sooner or later but assisting to ease transition to new. The finances involved are not the hardest bit.? It is the coordinated thinking and planning.?? And that’s doable.

Despicable them?

I don’t believe there is some sinister undercurrent behind most of this.? Most politicians and most employers have at least some sincere concerns for employees, and for all the empathies they may possess, they cannot invent new bank balance out of nowhere.?? Yet it is not enough, or excusable, to be purely reactive on such things.? ??There is the potential, and the need to be far more proactive in planning for change and its implications for employment roles – blue and white collar - than we currently seem to be imagining.?

It's easy to point the finger, and I think it needs to be said that all this is hard for everyone.? Yet we perhaps need to raise our sights on the level of forewarning that is possible, for these difficult changes, and get better at preparing.

The time to start is yesterday

Communities that are heavily involved in fossil fuel based industries are not hard to identify, and it’s not rocket science to set to work on this task. To be clear, this does not mean cherry picking some new industrial white elephant that is unproven in application as some kind of whimsical, rushed, knee-jerk governmental band-aid.? It primarily involves arming individuals and businesses to make their own choices - with options for retraining that have the greatest probability of being useful to an employment landscape in transition.

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