How The Over-50s Can Help Start-UPS And SMEs
Over-50s unemployment is an increasing problem. In fact, the increase in the unemployment rate for this group is growing twice as quickly as the rate for the widely lamented 18-24 year olds.
My colleague, Kay Gorman, and I founded skilledpeople.com when we retired. We had amassed a wealth of invaluable skills and experience we realised was of most value to SMEs and start-ups. Both can benefit enormously from instant experience and know-how.
We believe that the over-50s can help galvanise the economy if small businesses know they are available and how they can connect with them. The concept behind skilledpeople.com is a particularly good one for SMEs, because small business owners simply don’t have the time or resources to train poorly educated young people.
The over-50s come ready packaged with a quantifiable skill base, a good education and a willingness to put their experience to good use. Unfortunately, the issue of the unemployed over-50s has gone largely unnoticed by the press. Youth unemployment, it would seem, has taken precedence and as a result in the public mindset. However, the problem is real and it’s getting worse. There are many initiatives to get Britain’s youth working but besides skilledpeople.com I can’t easily name any for the over-50s.
In February, Office of National Statistics unemployment figures revealed that vacancies and skills demand is increasing. It is well documented that one of the biggest hurdles facing SMEs and start-ups is finance. The feedback we have received from our site members is that this directly affects recruitment, with many small businesses unable to afford salaried employees despite needing their skills.
Skilledpeople.com has a reservoir of talent that SMEs can tap into at very economic rates. We offer a unique service supporting both business growth and getting experienced people back into productive employment – a true “win-win”.
Our ‘Project Assignment’ service covers short project work (1-20 days), where SMEs can take advantage of the skilled specialist services of candidates to help them with activities such as HR, marketing and business planning, but without employing them full time. This makes it viable for small firms to get the right skills at low costs.
Small businesses need support if they are to help the UK out of recession. We are also in danger of losing a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience from professional people aged 50-plus who find themselves out of work.
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