Today’s labour market & technology: connecting talented people with the opportunities that are ready and waiting is a mission & challenge of our time

Here’s a long-read on the intersection of technology and the labour market... if you have your coffee in hand, join me.

This week we saw fresh data reminding us of big issues in the UK labour market. The country is still struggling with over 1 in 5 people inactive1 while nearly a million vacancies remain. Britain won’t succeed if we don’t fix the gap in the labour market.

Firms are clear that mobilising the potential and productivity of the UK’s workforce persists as one of their biggest priorities. The British Chamber of Commerce says: “We need to tackle skills shortages, keep people in work and help those who want to work back into employment.” Labour and skills shortages are currently preventing business from investing, argues the CBI. The REC reports that businesses have been more cautious about hiring but labour shortages persist. The FSB says “small firms appear to be battening down the hatches to an extent around employment levels.”

In the UK and globally, we’re benefitting from a wideranging debate right now about technology and innovation, particularly as we host the international summit on AI safety next month. Technology and change in the labour market is a major topic.

I’m a big believer in the opportunity that AI and technology bring. Major medical advances, mitigating climate change – these are huge. In addition, under the right conditions, AI stands to transform all areas of life and stimulate the UK economy by unleashing innovation and driving productivity, creating new jobs and improving the workplace.

TechUK believes that “AI tools and automation could contribute ￡400bn to the UK economy by the start of the next decade. This will come primarily from boosts to productivity.”

It will be attractive to firms big and small to use new tools. After all, “the principal driver behind small business innovation is to grow their turnover followed by diversifying and increasing their resilience.”, says the FSB. Companies are excited by 2023’s leaps in technology and want to skill people for the jobs of today and the future. They may adopt tech to address labour shortages.

But every employer wants great people alongside great tech. The best workplaces have already realised that they need to stay focused on skills, training, flexibility and diversity of talent.

And employers have to find talent in new places. They should be open to the nearly nine million people who have not recently looked for work. In the jargon, they’re “economically inactive”.

This is more than one in five people of working age. It includes people who have retired early, are long-term sick or disabled, or have caring responsibilities.

The number of people who are out of the labour force because of long-term sickness was at another record high by this summer, over two and a half million.

Work will not be right for all, but hundreds of thousands of people among the nine million have said they would like to work if the right job and support were possible. We should care for two reasons: firstly, that could be enough to match businesses’ vacancies. To fail on this stunts Britain.

Taxation must stretch to pay for every person who is on benefits rather than in work. New technology is not the solution to businesses’ concerns if billions of pounds are spent in failing to get British workers fit for where their talents can take them.

And because inflation is still a big worry for households and whole countries alike, it’s in everyone’s interests to get people into work and reduce the economic pressures of a tight labour market.

Secondly, too many people are being wrongly written off. Every unfilled vacancy now is a missed opportunity for a person to gain skills and experience and secure themselves in tough times. Those who struggle to come in from the cold now will be frozen out further if unemployment goes up, living costs stay high, and technological change challenges them.

So the cost of having millions of people who are not in work but who could be in work is both billions of pounds and an appalling waste of opportunity.

The human price of two and a half million people suffering long-term sickness is an even greater tragedy: we should be moving heaven and earth to treat them and help them be well, rather than society paying while they continue to suffer.

No one should be written off. Everyone’s talents must be included in growing our economy – and everyone should have the chance to grow.

Inclusive recruitment, inclusive technology and inclusive design have much to contribute. I’m proud to be working with the Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative, led by the disability access ambassador Kate Headley . Kate founded this national programme to safeguard and progress opportunities for disabled job seekers by removing barriers in recruitment; RIDI has changed the lives of more than 500,000 disabled people since 2011. Her firm, The Clear Company , are recognised global leaders of inclusive recruitment and talent management insight, training and technology.

We’ll be holding a special event together in Parliament on 7th November, bringing together business leaders, recruiters, and employers for a Disability Confident Question Time to get to the heart of what is stopping us from closing the disability employment and pay gaps.

And it was great to join the groundbreaking PurpleSpace to celebrate their 8th year anniversary with Ambassadors, #PositivelyPurple Founding Partners, Members, Futurists and key sponsors. With 4,000+ leaders across 56 countries PurpleSpace supports millions of disabled employees world wide, which is a can-do community of change-makers. We celebrated and debated what great leadership looks like when positioning disability as a vital component of the environmental, social and governance agenda. The power of employee resource groups is immense - and there's more to do as they look at the mission that will continue through 2024 culminating in a global summit held in London next year.

Let’s not forget that tech has a role to play itself in enabling an inclusive labour market. It’s been inspirational too to see progress made by a pioneering inclusive talent portal called Bridge of Hope Careers . It provides the missing link between untapped talent pools and inclusive employers seeking to get the right people.

When I founded the employment project Norwich for Jobs in my constituency, we knew that linking up employers, jobseekers, colleges and supportive charities was the critical thing. I hope that AI may do this even better and faster in future, helping millions more into the lifechanger job that’s right for them.

So tech has a vital place in our labour market – to help humans. The UK’s thriving tech economy is to be celebrated, and the principled, pro-innovation approach set out by the government is the right one. Developing and deploying technology in an inclusive way and for inclusive ends is essential in the face of some of the other big problems in the economy and labour market.

Connecting talented people with the opportunities that are ready and waiting is a mission and challenge of our time.

Last December I wrote of ten things we should do to help more people to start, stay and succeed in work. Next month, I will look back at progress.