YEP Says: Leeds must find fresh ways to close career gaps

But you don’t have to look too far to find a rather different city of people struggling on, the just-managing types who can only just afford to feed and clothe their families.

What Leeds should be doing is looking at ways to close the gap to help more people to climb the rungs and get on in life.

The gap between the highest and lowest paid workers in Leeds is ever widening, with around a fifth of the city’s total workforce stuck in a rut and unable to move up the career ladder.

A new watchdog panel set up to investigate the city’s economic growth progress has been told that Leeds is seeing an increase in high- pay, high-skilled jobs and low-pay, low-skill jobs, but there is a lack of opportunities to progress into the middle-income bracket.

Leeds City Council has been told that while the city is making “phenomenal” advances in the technological , digital and legal sectors, the manufacturing sector has stagnated.

We have to work hard at creating not only high-paid high-ranking jobs but stepping-stone jobs for people to enable them to make progress in their careers.

It is important for individuals, for companies and for the city as a whole.