VINCE CABLE FOR CEO

With Britain heading to the polling booths this week politicians are being closely analysed about their capabilities for the job. But how do they rate as business people? A recent survey has revealed Vince Cable is the politician senior executives would most like to working in their business.

The poll of 500 of senior management employees by careers site TheLadders.co.uk, put Vince Cable (45%) in the top spot based on his performance on the job. Cable was voted ahead of David Cameron (35%), Nick Clegg (32%), William Hague (31%) and Ken Clarke (29%) with Gordon Brown only coming in sixth place on the list.

The top reasons for choosing those above were because they were ‘strategic, a good thinker’ (28%), exhibited ‘personality, dynamism and motivation’ (19.5%), and had demonstrated a ‘good performance in their current position’ (15.6%) – all attributes that are clearly valued by Britain’s leading executives. 70% of those polled thought that business people would make good politicians however 76% do not rate politicians as business people, perhaps demonstrating Vince Cable’s popularity – with a solid business background, he was once a senior economist at Shell.

The survey also found that 64% of senior executives are optimistic that a change of government will bring improvements to the job market. The party that best represented the needs of the job seeker was the Conservatives (37%), followed by Labour (30%) and the Liberal Democrats (19%).

The specific policies related to improving the job market that managers would like to see in the winning party’s manifesto are:
1. Funding to business to recruit job seekers over the age of 50 (47%)
2. Temporary tax relief for employers hiring to fill new roles (41%)
3. Action on retraining job hunters in transferable skills (39%)
4. Investments in schemes to help businesses employ the long-term unemployed (36%)
5. Focusing on jobs for British nationals (30%)

Derek Pilcher, Managing Director of TheLadders.co.uk says: “There’s a great deal of expectation riding on the election and particularly for the job market which has taken a huge hit during the recession. With unemployment currently standing at 8% and the lowest it’s been since 1996* it’s really important for our politicians to also demonstrate their business skills in helping provide a more secure job market and – hopefully – a return to prosperity.”