Responding to the Business Secretary Vince Cable’s speech to the Liberal Democrats’ party conference in Brighton this morning the Recruitment and Employment Confederation’s (REC) Director of Policy and Professional Services Tom Hadley says:

“The Business Secretary is right to recognise the role of the UK’s flexible labour market in creating a million new private sector jobs over the last two years. However, more needs to be done to protect this vital flexibility and we need to see some tangible progress on the government’s ‘red-tape’ challenge.

“The disconnect between different government departments on issues such as skills, education and business growth is yet another obstacle to growth. We would have welcomed an insight into how some of these challenges can be addressed. Dr Cable mentioned a number of high-potential sectors such as life sciences, aerospace and creative industries. But the feedback we get from specialist recruiters is that there’s a real problem with a lack of suitable skills in these areas – which is why we need a radical rethink of how the education, skills and business agendas can be made to converge.”