Onefile: Helping countries upskill and train their people in a changing, uncertain world
Talk of trade wars and the general uncertainty resulting from President Donald Trump's controversial tariff hikes is likely to cause global economic slowdown, economists have warned.
Latest forecasts by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predict that the US economy will grow by just 1.8% this year against its higher estimate of 2.7% in January, while in the UK, the IMF puts predicted growth at a mere 1.1%.
Against such a challenging background, Onefile concludes that most countries will look to double down on their skills and training activity - with central funding being made available to kick start this. And Onefile's software products, services and people will be ready to help in many areas of the world to aid this transformation.
Skilled trades' investment plans for Canada
One such example is Canada, where tariff uncertainty and 'geopolitical tensions' have seen its growth forecast for 2025 reduced to 1.4% from an earlier 2%.
Reflecting on this development in a recent speech, liberal leader, and former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, spoke passionately about Canada's pressing need to build a skilled workforce for the future.
At a campaign event in Oakville, Ontario, he outlined how his party aimed to make Canada's economy the strongest in the G7 - starting with investment in skilled workers.
He said: "Train operators, bricklayers, welders and those in the specialised trades are essential to the future of Canada and we have to invest in their futures too. Investing in the skilled trades is at the very heart of our economic strategy. We are not just going to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the skilled trades. We are creating hundreds of thousands of careers."
Pledging to support apprentices, the labour unions, employers and colleges, he said his liberal government would create a new apprenticeship grant, removing financial barriers to those wanting to join the skilled trades.
Like the UK, which has also made construction a cornerstone of its economic growth strategy, Canada has skills shortages. Almost 250,000 people employed in Canada's construction trade are expected to retire over the next seven years, leaving a shortfall of 60,000 workers - and that's before any transformation measures.
Furthering apprenticeship training 'down under'
To plug skills gaps and nurture home grown talent, many countries are looking at how they can train their own people and become more self-sufficient.
In New Zealand, for example, there are calls for greater emphasis on vocational training so that learning in schools is not just geared to 'university-track education.'
In his report Trade Routes: Charting New Pathways from Secondary School to Industry Training, Senior Fellow Dr Michael Johnson states that nearly twice as many New Zealand school leavers fall into unemployment as undertake workplace-based learning.
He said: "Around 40% of New Zealand's school leavers do not engage in any form of tertiary education in the year after leaving school.
While most find employment, about 11% are unemployed and do not take part in further education or training. This represents a significant waste of human capital and opportunity, especially considering that industry training leads to many high-demand vocations. The root of the problem is cultural. University education has higher status than industry training among parents, schools, teachers, and students themselves."
To lift the profile of apprenticeships and promote them as a worthwhile career pathway, the New Zealand government has taken various steps, including introducing Apprenticeship Boost which supports employers to recruit and keep apprentices. Apprenticeship Boost payments go directly to employers to incentivise them to do this. And, as of the start of 2025 employers can now receive up to 12 months of support per eligible apprentice. Payments are currently 500 New Zealand dollars per month (excluding GST- goods and services tax).
Australia is also keen to further its apprenticeship skills training, with recent figures for starts in skilled trades programmes especially encouraging.
Data released in December 2024 by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) on behalf of the Australian Government showed that apprentice and trainee commencements in the June 2024 quarter were up 14.3% on the same period of 2023.
Starts increased across most occupations, with growth particularly strong in engineering, ICT and science technicians, food trades workers and automotive and engineering trades workers. On another positive note, trade completions grew by 15.4% over the three months, primarily driven by a 32.0% increase in construction trades workers.
Non-trade apprenticeship starts also rose by 10.9% during the period with most the growth among labourers, clerical and administrative staff and machinery operators and drivers.
Ireland celebrates record take up of Further Education and Training places
Closer to home, Ireland has made great progress on its work to attract more young people into apprenticeships and further education. A record number of Irish FE college places and training places were filled in 2024 according to SOLAS, the State agency that oversees Ireland's Further Education & Training (FET) sector.
Its report's findings, published by the Irish Examiner newspaper, revealed that more than 400,000 further education and training (FET) places were taken up by almost 230,000 learners for the first time ever.
Included in these figures were more than 9,300 new apprentices registered across 77 different apprenticeships with nearly 10,000 employers. Additionally, during 2024, 25,000 upskilling places were taken up by employees through Solas' 'Skills to Advance' programme, which focuses on areas such as sustainability, digital and robotics.
Reskilling the Middle East
According to a report by the World Economic Forum, the Middle East is undergoing something of a reskilling revolution. Education, business and industry in the geopolitical region are coming together to embrace technology, pursue public-private collaboration and adopt new approaches to education.
Many Middle Eastern countries are diversifying as they move away from an oil-based to a knowledge-based economy, says the Forum, and they want to be ready to meet the seismic changes AI and new technologies will bring.
Onefile works globally at the interface between policy, funding and software
As these findings show, nations across the globe are already looking at how they can train and upskill their workforces to meet the challenges of a changing and uncertain world. And the need to do so is even more critical now with talk of declining globalisation and its impact on international trade.
As a leader in edtech, Onefile is at the forefront of skills training. For the past 20 years we've been developing software at the interface of policy, funding and learning - revolutionising how people learn and train in the UK and overseas.
Our software is highly configurable and has features which meet the specific individual needs of learners, training providers and employers.
How our customers can benefit
There are so many ways in which our future customers can benefit from Onefile's Eportfolio and other learner management platforms and innovations. Working alongside our customer development team, they can tailor their experience so they're more than ready for the various Government-backed initiatives and processes which are likely to surface. Onefile's parent company Harris will be a huge support as Onefile internationalises its operations and we will be able to team up with other Harris EdTech businesses throughout the world.
Whatever country or funding regime you work in, and whatever your role, do please contact us for a discussion to see how we might be able to help you with our range of products to support all aspects of learner management.