Flatten Unemployment to Avoid Scarring the North
Carolyn Fairbairn will address the Northern Powerhouse Education, Employment and Skills Summit later today, when she will say the region and business community have three main goals for the next 12 months.
Flatten unemployment to avoid ‘scarring the North’: CBI lays out region’s three main goals.
The director general of the CBI is to lay out the organisation’s three “main goals” for the North over the next year, stating that unemployment in the region must be flattened to avoid “scarring” the region. Carolyn Fairbairn is to address the Northern Powerhouse Education, Employment and Skills Summit later today, when she will say the region and business community have three main goals for the next 12 months.
Those goals are separated into three time frames – the coming days and months, the next six months, and for next year – with all aimed at repairing the economy following the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Talking about the coming days and months ahead, she will say: “We must urgently work together to flatten the unemployment curve to prevent long-term scarring of the North. This requires our immediate focus and determination to keep people in work and reskill those who sadly lose their jobs.”
For the next six months, she will say: “We must then reinvigorate economies and create jobs across the North by investing in the green economy, connectivity, and innovation.
“We have to light the spark in the North. This can be the engine for growth for the whole of the UK.”
In terms of next year, she will say: “We must seize the moment to empower places by building upon this year’s long-promised Devolution White Paper.
“Business has been ambivalent on devolution, but no more. We want action and we want it in the next twelve months.
The theme of the summit, set to take place online on Wednesday, will be how the north can ‘reboot, rebuild, recover and rebalance’.
It aims to “kickstart” the debate on the importance of education, employment and skills in the North’s future prosperity.
Panelists will include Henri Murison, director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, former deputy Prime Minister Lord Heseltine, children’s commissioner Anne Longfield and TalkTalk CEO Tristia Harrison.