People and Skills

The people and skills investment priority can provide funding to help reduce the barriers some people face to employment and support them to move towards employment and education.

This theme can also target funding into skills for local areas to support employment and local growth.

Unemployment / Economic Inactivity / Worklessness

Reducing economic inactivity will require raising aspirations and opportunity in those young people for whom unemployment may already be entrenched in their family.

The achievement of softer outcomes and their subsequent ripple effects will be equally important so that marginalised groups get closer to the labour market with onward progression to education, training or employment.

Volunteering and social enterprises can also offer important routes to improving skills and experience that may lead to increased rates of economic activity.

Young People Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET)

There is a need to reduce the number of 11 to 19-year-olds who are in education but at risk of becoming not in education, training, or employment (Pre-NEET), and those who are 16 to 24-year-olds who are NEET, to bring about their sustainable integration into the labour market, thereby contributing to a reduction in youth unemployment.

Skill Levels

Good skills are crucial for local and prospective employer confidence that jobs can be filled with suitable and appropriately skilled workers. This increases the likelihood of local workers being able to successfully compete for vacancies.

Currently businesses are experiencing difficulties with recruitment and finding employees with the right skill levels, and workers who are facing uncertain futures as a result of the pandemic, need to be able to access new or different types of work quickly, including by reskilling, retraining and having clear pathway back into the labour market.