In his inaugural lecture as Visiting Professor at The Open University Business School, the presenter of Radio Four's Today programme said economists are currently polarised between those who think austerity is being pursued too far and too fast, and those who think we need to maintain austerity in order to get growth. But this argument is not the most important one.
Instead we should be focusing on how the UK economy has been re-oriented towards different sectors over the last 30 years, and whether this re-orientation process has gone too far.
"Not everybody is going to be in the creative industries, a pharmaceutical laboratory worker, a university teacher or a skilled engineer," he said. "And there is a huge regional mismatch between where the old jobs were, and the new jobs are."
Evan built on arguments in his recent TV series Made in Britain, one of a number of OU/BBC series which Evan has presented. They include Business Nightmares, about commercial disasters, and Radio Four's The Bottom Line, a business discussion series which also has a huge international TV audience on the BBC World Channel.
Hear Evan's lecture Reflections on the British economy in full, and explore further, on OpenLearn.
Comments
I think the paradigm shift is already happening.People need to be trained in 2 jobs not just one .One in manufacturing ,one in humanitiesThe Open University is already catering for degree models which have more than one area off research.For example you could be a Baker as well as a trained musician or any combination you like....supplying food as well earning a living as an entetainer...the paradigm shift of only having only one job has to change,the union of emotion and intellect.....This will ease the problem of supply and demand
regards
dominic
Dominic,
That is a really interesting thought. I guess we all have skills in both hemispheres of the brain, by taking two (or more) specialisms (sounds ironic) we can exercise differing parts of the brain, and broaden our chances of making a living.
I think we may end up doing multiple jobs, until one begins to dominate our time, then we will specialise.
Regards
Tim