������Ƶ

A business leader has warned that redundancies made as a result of the coronavrius pandemic could be ‘quite high’ in Staffordshire – and are likely to hit lower-paid and lower-skilled workers hardest.

The chairman of the Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) Alun Rogers – who is also the founder of Stafford technology business Risual – says that based on future predictions about the ������Ƶ’s employment levels coming out of the pandemic, the number of jobs losses in Staffordshire could be ‘quite high.’

But he also believes that there are ‘massive opportunities’ for businesses to grasp – and to come out of the crisis ‘much stronger’ than before.

Speaking during the ‘Post Pandemic – Can Staffordshire’s Businesses Survive and Then Thrive?’ webinar hosted by Keele University’s Smart Innovation Hub, Alun said: “At the moment, predictions around redundancy levels are difficult to understand. You will have seen the numbers coming from the OBR and the ONS and the ranges are quite severe; and it could be quite high in this area. I think the issue is potentially that it can hit the lower-skilled and lower-paid areas the most as well, which is a problem.

“This is an unprecedented situation and we are moving quickly, but we have to be extremely cautious at this time to neither understate or overstate the situation and come up with the wrong interventions.”

In the meantime, Alun suggests that businesses should make the most of training opportunities to upskill their staff as the ������Ƶ gears up to enter the ‘recovery’ phase.

He said: “The current economic situation has meant that many people are furloughed and that’s caused lots of issues for people to deal with potentially. But one of the opportunities for an organisation is that if your staff are furloughed they can take this opportunity for a learning break and go and build skills.

“In my own organisation, there are a number of people who are studying, in the normal way as though they were at work in normal hours, and they are acquiring as many vocational exams as possible, which is allowing us to turn something into an opportunity.

“As a business you would expect to come back stronger than ever from this if you have a highly-skilled workforce who have been able to use the opportunity to increase their skillset.”

But Alun insists that the key to recovery for any business is to grasp the opportunities which the Covid-19 outbreak has presented.

He added: “You can choose to see this is a significant opportunity for our patch; lots of areas of the economy are going to change, the revolution you’ve seen in the last few weeks needs to turn into an evolution in your own business.

“The economy in many ways has gone back 60 years and at the same time gone forward 10 or 20 years in the way that we all now do things digitally; and that’s a real conundrum to wrestle with.

“But we do absolutely have an opportunity in this area, there’s a really good workforce and a fantastic location, we have all the great building blocks that we need here to come out of this much stronger, if we chose to.

“It will be a group effort. Every business needs to grasp the opportunities that this is going to present and it’s really important that we do that. The issues and the problems are apparent, but there is a massive opportunity to grasp coming out of this and that’s for everybody to try to spot themselves and try and help us get the best out of the situation.”

Businesses are now being urged to take part in an to help the LEP – as well as Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce, Staffordshire County Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council – to get a better understanding of the impact coronavirus is having on them.

Alun said: "We are very keen to hear from our business base. It is critical that we know the challenges our businesses face, the support that will be needed and the opportunities that may be presented as we deal with the economic crisis this situation has created for Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire."