Asset Skills welcomes new focus on workplace skills to help jobless

Asset Skills has welcomed the announcement that focusing on employability skills should be a top priority for the Government's future welfare programme.

Speaking of how ten years of the New Deal has helped unemployed people, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in the future the best welfare would no longer be the benefits people have but the skills they gain for tomorrow.

"I'm pleased the Prime Minister has drawn attention to the importance of employability skills," said Richard Beamish, Chief Executive of Asset Skills.

"These are the everyday workplace abilities like turning up on time and good communication that help keep people in jobs and in turn increase productivity."

"As the Sector Skills Council for the property, housing, facilities management and cleaning industries it's our responsibility to ensure all workers in these areas are skilled for the job they are doing, whether they're pest controllers, housing officers or caretakers."

Gordon Brown said the next challenge for the Government was to help people find new skills in the coming years so they can find decent jobs.

He predicted that if in the past the problem has been one of unemployment, over the next few decades the issue to be tackled must be employability.

"If in the old days lack of jobs demanded priority action, in the new world it is lack of skills, and that means our whole approach to welfare must move on," said Mr Brown.