The Minister was speaking at the North West debate on the 'Talent Challenge' convened by Business in the Community; part of a series of events being held across the country to speed up the pace of change to ensure the country is ready to face competition from the emerging global economies.
The debate at Sportcity, Manchester brought together key players from education, business, community and government to look at how the North West can gear up to ensure it has a trained workforce to meet employers needs.
Minister for the North West Beverley Hughes said:
"People are the North West's number one resource and against the backdrop of a fast changing world, we are facing unprecedented competition from the rising aspirations and skill levels of the major global economies.
"By 2020 the Chinese economy will be bigger than all 27 EU economies combined. The North West needs to compete and a highly skilled workforce is vital to prosperity of the regional economy.
"The Prime Minister has highlighted the global skills race and we need to be thinking now about how we as a region are going to compete. The future prosperity and livelihoods of everyone depends on our determination to ensure that each of us develops our talents, skills and creativity lifelong learning.
"The challenge we face is that within the next decade large numbers of unskilled jobs will be replaced high skilled ones. We must ensure that the North West workforce is not left behind.
"We must unlock talent, upgrade skills and back innovation so that we can create a new role for Britain in the global economy and prevent untapped and wasted talent.
"The current difficult economic conditions make this an ideal time for this debate. We have to look forward and with the right education, training and encouragement there are no limits as to what people can achieve."
The drive to improve skills in the workforce, follows the setting up of the Joint Economic Commission for the North West which brought together key players from the public and private sectors to ensure the region emerges from the economic downturn stronger than before
The Minister also sits on the Regional Economic Council in Westminster. This enables Regional Ministers to report back to the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform on the effects of the downturn in their regions.
