4. Will the First Minister make a statement on the percentage of the Welsh workforce working in higher-paid economic sectors? OQ59638

Llywydd, the latest available data for 2021 shows that 42.4 per cent of those in employment in Wales were working in higher paid industries.

Can I thank the First Minister for that response? The unemployment rate over recent years in Wales has been lower than the UK average. I know we've had a blip in the last couple of months. We know that the median salaries in Wales are lower than that of the rest of the United Kingdom. In information and communications, we have 2.35 per cent; in finance and insurance, we have 3.32 per cent; and in professional, technical and scientific services, we have 2.61 per cent of the UK employment. What is wrong with the Welsh economy in numbers? These are higher paid sectors. How is Welsh Government working to create more employment in higher paid sectors? And how does the Welsh Government see the role of universities in developing employment in these sectors?

Well, of course, I agree with Mike Hedges that the universities have a very important role to play in that. In Veeqo, in his own constituency, that I visited with the Member for Swansea East, the 80 highly skilled technical roles that that business supports rely on their relationship with the university to attract graduates to those businesses. The general point that Mike Hedges makes is a very important one, Llywydd: we need more jobs in highly paid sectors here in Wales. And the strategies that the Minister for Economy is pursuing, the innovation strategy that was launched with the then leader of Plaid Cymru back in February and the investment that the Minister announced only last week in this area are designed to support those highly paid sectors that we have here in Wales. And we have them, Llywydd, as well. The tech and cyber sectors that the Minister made a statement on in front of the Senedd last week is one of those. Video games—there's a cluster of video game developers in Swansea itself. Fintech—another sector in which there is strong growth here in Wales. The media sector—Cardiff has the third largest screen sector in the United Kingdom after London and Manchester, and paying wages above that median Welsh figure. So, the Welsh Government's strategy has a real focus on identifying those sectors, helping them with the things that the Welsh Government can provide—and that is essentially investment in skills and in infrastructure—and, where there are nascent industries, as there are in Paul Davies's constituency, for example, we are investing there in the marine energy sector, powerful investment. Those will be the jobs of the future, and they'll be the sorts of jobs that Mike Hedges was asking about. 

First Minister, the world of work is at a crossroads. Jobs we could not have dreamed of a few decades ago are now replacing the highly skilled, highly paid manufacturing jobs of the past. Cloud architects are more common than boiler makers and machinists. With the rapid growth of AI—artificial intelligence—and large language models, tomorrow's workplace will be very different. AI will replace many higher paid employees across multiple sectors. First Minister, what steps are the Welsh Government taking to ensure that young people have the necessary skills to adapt in a rapidly changing workplace to equip them for jobs we can't even imagine at this point?

Well, Llywydd, I think Altaf Hussain makes some really important points in what he just said. There is no doubt at all that the world of work is changing, and the jobs of the future will not simply be a reflection of the opportunities that were there in the past. In many parts of Wales, we have really excellent examples of new industries emerging that will offer young people in those localities the opportunities that we would want to see for them. When I was in France in March, I went to visit the headquarters of Thales—Thales who have a major investment in Ebbw Vale in cyber security, new jobs, jobs of the future, and now a really major new partnership emerging between Thales in Canada and Thales in Ebbw Vale. The company read a list to me of the countries around the globe who had now visited Ebbw Vale because it is a centre of excellence in the training of young people for those jobs.

Interestingly—the Member will be interested in this, I know—the people on the ground said to me that one of the challenges they faced was you could enthuse a young woman aged 13 or 14 about a future in cyber security. That young person then goes home and says to her parents, 'I'd like to be in cyber security in the future', and the parents say, 'Cyber security? I haven't heard of that. I know what a nurse does. I know what a teacher does. I know what somebody who works for the council does. Wouldn't it be better to stick to something where we know what we're doing here?'. So, their point was alive very much to the point that Altaf Hussain has made—that, in order to create those opportunities for the future, it's not just young people who we have to persuade, but we have to persuade families as well that the world of work is changing and the opportunities that will be there for their children and their grandchildren will be different, and they need to be with us on that journey.