Page 14 - Neath Port Talbot Skills Report 2024

Plans for Clean Growth
At the macroeconomic level, the county has barely
sufficient workforce to deliver the construction and
engineering projects already earmarked or
underway. With unemployment at low levels
(around 3%) this is creating a tightening of the
labour market
In short, there are not enough construction workers
or engineers in the work force.
It is well-recognised that too few young people –
including some of the brightest talent - want to go
into a career in construction and engineering.
Therefore, Factors such as:
Substitution, Where firms substitute one type of
labour for another to benefit from an intervention
but do not increase employment or output.
Leakage: The extent to which [intervention] effects
“leak out” of a target area into others. For an
intervention designed to increase employment in a
particular area, leakage could take the form of
increased employment in neighbouring areas
Displacement: The extent to which an increase in
economic activity is offset by reductions in
economic activity in the area under consideration or
in areas close
by. For example, where a supported or favoured
business takes market share from an unsupported
or unfavoured business in the same area. In other
words, decarbonisation construction projects versus
other construction projects.
Will also effect the skills landscape in the county,
due to the current high levels of employment and
the core foundation economy sectors already
reporting skills shortages.
Filling the jobs and skills gaps through a supply
side labour intervention, namely through the
provision of targeted education and training,
will improve the supply of labour to the
construction and engineering sectors and
support the delivery of industrial
decarbonisation projects with lower levels
displacement and less use of imported labour.
The effect of that on the ground – the economic
opportunity – is more likely to be felt in the
following ways:
• Moving the existing construction and
engineering work force up the value chain with
the objective of making it more productive.
• Utilising underemployed labour i.e. getting
more of the unemployed or more of those at
risk of being unemployed (e.g. school leavers in
deprived communities, ex-services, ex-offenders,
retired athletes etc) into Construction and
Engineering.
• Switching workers currently employed in low
value-added sectors (e.g. retail) into higher
value-added construction and engineering jobs.
The effect on UK PLC is therefore more likely to
be felt in terms of higher GVA per job (higher
productivity) and thus higher average wages,
and less likely in terms of a growth in the
number of jobs
Source: IDRIC - Enabling Skills for Decarbonisation
These initiatives require an underpinning to ensure
correct skills are in place to design implement,
manage and the decommission of traditional
practices.
Role displacement from decommission and
upskilling the displaced skills is one area for
consideration, however it is estimated via Climate
Change and Nature Strategy that more people will
be required than displaced, therefore still
identifying a shortfall.
Across the strategy, cross over of skills (transient
skills) across sectors must be considered
Local Green Growth Initiatives
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