Our chemicals industry has an image problem when it comes to recruitment. Why, when it’s key to achieving a greener economy?
Young people on average appear to be more instinctively receptive to environmentalism than their elders. The paradox is that they appear to be reluctant to work in those sectors where they often could most easily promote the green agenda simply by doing their job.
The recently published Cogent Skills report A greenprint on skills for the low carbon industries contains depressing confirmation of this; depressing but not surprising to anyone who has observed the sector over the last two decades and more.
It acknowledges the recruitment gap is nothing new. In fact, it goes back a great deal further: The 2013 Government-commissioned report Public images of manufacturing in the UK was one of a number expressing concern about public attitudes to industry. Since then, things have become perhaps more entrenched. The departure of many older skilled workers, encouraged by the lockdown experience, together with the smaller size of the young adult worker cohort has contributed to increasing competition with other employers. So too has the greater sense of urgency and moral purpose around the transition to the green economy.
In principle, the latter ought not to prove a deterrent given that the chemicals sector is at the forefront of greening efforts. In practice, it is – because so many potential recruits do not perceive that the chemicals sector is on the side of transition.
The factors that industrial automation was designed to erase – work that was dirty, distant, dangerous or dull – are frequently the very characteristics attributed to it. Contemporary references are dominated by images of its most extreme impacts. For previous generations, industry was highly visible, often dominating towns’ economies and local employment. Modern high-tech industry is rarely so embedded within communities.
This in turn feeds the view politicians and public that manufacturing is something the UK did but no longer does, cementing the belief that it represents past, not future employment.
As the likes of BP in the oil and gas sector know well, changing brand perception is a slow process that requires reinforcement and evidence. And the chemicals sector needs perhaps to start with rehabilitating its name – which like ‘engineer’, has a somewhat negative connotation for a younger audience.
Conveying the sector’s green credentials may be a challenge in PR terms but the proof is abundant, point out its advocates.
A sift through months’ worth of emails to Process Engineering turns up numerous examples: water purification and treatment, sustainable agriculture, carbon capture and utilisation, energy storage, green chemistry and solvents, as well as support for innovation and university spin-outs. And while transparency is rarely associated with industry, chemical companies have been exemplary adopters of initiatives such as My Green Lab’s ACT labelling for products and corporate sustainability reports.
The chemicals sector needs perhaps to start with rehabilitating its name – which like ‘engineer’, has a somewhat negative connotation for a younger audience
While the chemicals industry’s back catalogue of achievement is a powerful corrective, perceptions are as powerful as facts in shaping attitudes, suggests the Cogent Skills report: “If the transitioning industries are not viewed as being part of the solution, they will struggle to attract the workforce… to deliver the considerable disruptive technological improvements that are so important to the national effort for net zero.”
