Ms Br?d O'Brien:

Some employers invest in training their workforce and others do not. That is not just an issue for older workers but also for younger workers. We held some focus groups with young people recently to look at what would help them and how employers could support them to get work. These would be young people who would be quite distant from the labour market. People's experiences were quite striking in what they did or did not find when they got a job. Larger employers who are at the upper end of the labour market know that if they do not mind their staff, they will lose them and possibly to their competitors. At the other end of the labour market, many employers feel that if they train someone, that person will just go down the road and work for your man. There is a whole cultural issue in our labour market around addressing how upskilling and supporting people to upskill is so important for all of us across our lifetimes, particularly when the world of work is changing. We will need to decarbonise. There is the whole issue of digitalisation and automation. The world of work is changing. All of us need to be able to be supported over our lifetimes to try to address that. For people who did not get access to good education outcomes when they were younger, it has a cumulative impact over their lifetime. It is often those who got a better start who end up in employments where the employer knows that they had better train Neasa and they will lose her if they do not. That cumulative impact is an issue. We need serious cultural change in our labour market to get that appreciated by a broader cohort of employers who will invest in their staff.