Chancellor Gordon Brown said recently that every effort would be made to expand the graduate job market to businesses and offices throughout Scotland. Brown stated that the British government would push to have 500,000 new graduates enter the Scottish job force by 2050. Brown and other members of the British government are concerned with the United Kingdom's role in the new global economy, particularly in areas like Scotland with a high population of unskilled workers. As such, British leaders are making a push to increase the technology sector in the United Kingdom and become the hub for new economic forces in the Western Hemisphere.



Brown's stated goal is to shift the low skill jobs that currently exist in Scotland into graduate employment and high skill positions. While specifics were not forthcoming from anyone in the Chancellor's office, there are several different types of positions that may be part of this push for graduate jobs in Scotland. Telecommunications firms throughout the United Kingdom and Europe may be opening new offices and facilities in Scotland, creating a need for information technology, engineering, and sales staff. Medical technology and pharmaceutical companies that are becoming more ubiquitous in Europe may set up shop in Scotland as a way of reaching the major United Kingdom cities.

According to most estimates by British researchers, there are nearly 500,000 unskilled workers in Scotland. The new initiative by the British government would aim to not only draw British and international graduates into new Scottish graduate jobs, but also provide educational opportunities to these unskilled Scottish workers. With a highly competitive job market in the United Kingdom, graduate recruits and young professionals from England may find it easier to find jobs in branch offices in Scotland. A willingness to move and establish oneself in a new community may be able to get banking, financing, and other graduates lucrative positions in burgeoning fields.

However, the most important aspect of implementing the Chancellor's plan is mobilizing graduate recruiting firms throughout the United Kingdom to train Scottish workers for new jobs. Universities and employment training firms will be asked to work more with unskilled Scottish workers in order to give them the vocational and professional skills for important jobs in the 21st century. Once these low skill workers are given the proper educational training, graduate recruiting firms can work to place them in the growing graduate job market in Scotland.