Including a blog by Emma Pinchbeck, CEO of Energy UK, on why we all need to talk more about childcare, to mark this month's International Women's Day.
The world of work hasn’t just changed because of Covid. Other contributing factors are an ageing workforce, new technology, shifting perspectives on work-life balance, and an increased number of people dropping out of the workforce due to health problems or to manage caring responsibilities.
Whatever size of business or sector you operate in, access to people and skills is going to present a challenge in one way or another. According to the Bank of England, UK labour supply will barely grow at all by the middle of this decade. We’re also suffering from worryingly high levels of economic inactivity, with 1.7 million people wanting to work but facing barriers that mean they can’t.
There’s no understating the size and scale of this challenge and the CBI has called for action to boost affordable childcare provision; support employer health interventions - by extending the expenses and benefits system - and change the Apprenticeship Levy into something that works better for business.
We really are at a crux moment on people and skills. The sooner we all step up, the sooner we’ll reduce inflationary pressure, increase productivity growth, and deliver prosperity for all.
Emma Pinchbeck, CEO of Energy UK
Childcare is like energy: it needs to be affordable, secure and fit for the modern economy.
We are in the middle of a once-in-a-generation energy crisis. But as CEO of the energy trade body, the most stressful thing that happened last week was my oldest child being sick over the floor of the nursery at pick-up. She was fine (it turned out that she’d been eating literal mud cakes) but if this happens to your child they rightly can’t go to formal childcare for at least one or two days. “Why couldn’t she just do it on the street?” asked my husband, half-jokingly – because without childcare
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