companies can't find enough workers, so do they need to look harder? underrepresented groups like autistic and dyslexic people could do a lot to plug the skills gap, but employees need to do more work to recruit more of them. there is a greater level of innovation. you have people who think different, who act different, and who bring a totally new level of thought process into the solutions. i'm going to hearfrom jane gratton from the british chambers of commerce, about their skills gap findings. plus, i speak to these two. there they are — lars backstrom, an autistic data analyst, and kurt schaeffer, who runs the biggest company in the world with a majority of autistic staff, more than 400 in his company alone. also on the show, the big boss of one of the world's largest jobs companies, recruit holdings, which operates in 60 countries, joins me to talk about how to fill the skills gap and how to spot lies on people's job applications. wherever you'rejoining me from around the world, once again, a big hello, and a warm welcome to the show. you know, it may never have been a more challenging time for companies. and while rising costs and interest rates certainly dominate the headlines, companies themselves say that being able to employ enough of the rightly skilled people is one of the biggest problems they face. in particular, they need more people with technical and communication skills. you know, in america, the unemployment rate is atjust under 4%, and almost 70% of companies say they have trouble recruiting all the staff they need. that's11i% more than two years ago. in europe, they're calling 2023 the so—called �*year of skills�*, because more than three—quarters of companies, they report difficulties finding workers with the right skill set. and a quarter of small and medium—sized companies say that that is their biggest problem. here in the uk, it's a similar picture to america. unemployment is hovering atjust under 4%. and a new report shows that more than seven out of ten companies are reporting a so—called skills gap. that report is fresh out from the british chambers of commerce. and one of its recommendations is that companies work harder to fill their skills gap by recruiting from underrepresented groups. businesses themselves need to be more flexible and agile in the way that they manage the workplace. there are lots of people from underrepresented groups who would be very happy and would be very willing to move intojobs, would like to work, but are struggling to access the work because of potentially the interview process or because of a lack of adjustments in the workplace. for example, we know that very few autistic adults are in full—time work at the present time, and only 13% of businesses have any sort of plan or initiative in place to support disabled adults in work. so, if businesses need to look to hire more autistic people, how should they go about it? well, my next guest didn't know he was autistic until he was over 50. so, he's experienced the job market with a diagnosis and without. lars backstrom, a real pleasure having you on the show. and, lars, let me start with this, because you weren't diagnosed until you were something like 51 years old. how did you come to realise that you are autistic? i had always felt...alienated. i had always wondered why things, especially social things, they were easy for other people, but appeared so difficult for me. but i never really suspected it. and also, i had been receiving counselling for most of my adult life and neither of my counsellors even suspected it. partly because that adult autism was not the thing. but even so, it was actually my wife. one day she was web surfing and she came across an article about autism in adults in 2013. and she started thinking, "that does very much look like my husband." lars, i'm going to do something i never, never usually do. isabelle, your wife — she's next to you, isn't she? yeah. can i have a quick word with her? well, yes, by all means. yeah, come on in, isabelle. would you like to sit in my chair? yes. hi, isabelle. hello. hello, isabelle. lovely to have you and to see you. thank you. let me just ask you this. so you were doing this internet search and then you sort of put the pieces together. but isabelle, did you have any thoughts prior to finding that online site, that maybe lars — there was something different about lars? i had always known that there was something different about lars, but i couldn't quite put my finger on it. when we first started dating, i used to think that my boyfriend was quirky. but, you know, ithought, well, there are lots of people that are quirky out there and maybe myself quirky. but as the years went by, i started to really realise that there was something different. and so when i came across that article, i was actually shocked to see that most of what they were talking about fitted with the behaviour that lars had been showing throughout the years. and just briefly, when you saw that article and you started reading, i guess, you know, diagnoses of autism, did...did the light i guess, you know, diagnoses of autism, did the light bulb sort of come on? oh, yes, absolutely. yes _ it was like reading about lars. and at the end of that article, they took you to a link and it said, "do this test. "it's not an indication that you have autism, "but it's an indication that you might have and you might "want to talk to your gp about it for a referral." and then i called lars and i did the test on him and it showed that he might be on the autistic spectrum and that's when we started the process rolling. isabel, i'm going to ask you to put lars back in front of the camera. a real pleasure. thank you for your time. thank you very much. thank you. there you go. welcome back, lars. so, lars, once you got the diagnosis, i want to ask you, how did you feel when you realised it? it was a bit of a mixed feeling. i mean, first of all, and the biggest of all was that i was relieved because now i had answers to my feelings of alienation and why so much had gone wrong in my life despite my utmost effort. when you know the cause, then you can start thinking, "what can we do about this?" now i had something to work on, so i started studying and researching about autism. lars, did you have problems at work before your diagnosis? work. school. family life as we know it. yes, everywhere. yes, i did. with alienation, isolation, even bullying and harassment. lars, what's the biggest challenge that you find in the workplace? oh, that's an easy answer. social aspects. i like to consider myself actually quite social, but i don't understand social interaction and i send conflicting signals to the people around me. so it is a kind of a mutual misunderstanding. and also, ijust have extreme difficulties with office politics. i'm just curious — what is it that you excel at? problem solving. there are a couple of things. i mean, there are some stereotypes about autistic people that are true. we are good at seeing patterns and picking out anomalies. also, coming from a neurodiverse perspective, i sometimes look at problems in a different way, but what am i good at? yeah, working hard and being very loyal and one thing is that i have, i have quite a developed empathy, that is another erratic stereotype of autistic people. that we don't have empathy. it's actually, quite often, it's quite the opposite. we have overdeveloped empathy. we don't have a filter. we can't filter out all the emotions around us. and that causes a bit of stress, actually. lars, what would you say to other neurodivergent people about going into the workplace? the advice i have — it sounds sort of in general, but i think we have to remember that a lot of autistic people come into the work force or attempt to get into the workforce, carrying with them traumas from earlier in life. so one advice is, if you suspect you have autism, get a formal diagnosis. because then you know. and you will have the law on your side when you apply for work and you work. and be persistent. it's too easy to give up. i have seen too many fellow autistic people giving up. and it's very depressing because you will fail. but it'sjust, be persistent and accept every failure is a learning opportunity and ask for help. i have noticed that there are people that are prepared to take advantage of us, that is all too true. but there are also very many kind people that are able and willing, sometimes even quite eager to help, and perhaps be yourself. it's very, very difficult... ..difficult to ask of autistic people, since it's very difficult to know yourself. but at least don't try to be someone who you are not, which is called masking, which is very common among autistic people. the simplest advice is just do your best. that's all anyone can ask of you, as long as you do your best. wonderful advice, lars. lars backstrom, i can't tell you how much we appreciate you sharing your story, and isabel, sharing your story with us. look, good luck with everything. and i really appreciate your time. 0k. lars was placed in hisjob through a company called auti con. it's an international information technology firm that exclusively employs autistic adults as it consultants. they have more than 400 autistic employees. in fact, it is the largest neurodiverse majority company in the world. kurt schoffer, a real pleasure having you on the show. and, kurt, iwant to start with this — kurt, what are the benefits to business for a neuro—inclusive workforce now? that's a very interesting one. thanks for asking that question. so, basically, the most important one that came out of the study is there is a greater level of innovation. you have people who think different, who act different, and who bring a totally new level of thought process into the solutions. there is increased efficiency and that is, of course, what every company around the world is looking for. there's one thing that might surprise you, but it becomes clear when you think about it. there is a much clearer communication in the teams where people are included. as i said at the very beginning, that clear definition of the project helps. and guess what? it helps autistic people. it helps non—autistic people. and so, we can really see that the communication in the team is definitely increasing. there's better teamwork. there's very often even a better team spirit. and another thing, of course, is there's a greater sense of purpose for the organisations that are trying it out. and, kurt, you estimate that only around 30% of autistic adults are in employment. so how can companies think differently about trying to trying to attract this group? the biggest hindrance until today is the way we are hiring people in general in the business. you know, we are not focusing enough on the strengths. we are not focusing enough on the capabilities. we are still seeing too many other things around the person that are probably not really important in the job. and in order to change that, that hiring methodology needs to be rethought completely. how, kurt? we actually help our partners to do that. you know, very often, companies do have certain bottlenecks in the hiring process where they more or less exclude neurodiverse people from the beginning without being aware of that. and basically, you know, especially the bigger company gets, the more potent it is that they are really seeing that they might need to adjust a few things from their standard processes. standardisation very often is not helpful for our people to find their way into the business. that's what we are trying to change. that's what we have been changing quite significantly already and that remains our focus for the future, of course. kurt, i have to ask you this. the image of the rainman, the autistic person with exceptional powers. that's a cliche, isn't it? yeah, it's there until today, you know, believe it or not. but it's something that we completely disagree because the rainman picture is like you are really good in especially one thing. and that is of course, not true for colleagues. they are capable to do a lot of different things in a really fantastic manner. so it's a cliche. the idea of the autistic it worker is becoming a bit of a representation of the community. but obviously there are other conditions and other industries. do you think you can see similar changes for, for those communities? first of all, if you change the perception of autism, you, of course, change it for everybody who is on the spectrum, which is which is great news. you know, if you talk about autistic people, depending on which statistics you look at, you talk abouti to 2% of the population. if you talk about neurodiversity overall, we're talking about 15% of the population. and if you as an employer, you know, do not even look at 15% of the population, how sad would that be? so definitely, you know, it's important that people look especially for that talent because they always bring something to the table that other people don't do. and kurt, let me end on this. in five years�* time, do you see a situation where we have more neurodivergent people in the workplace? i definitely do. what helps most is that a lot of people have understood that diversity is notjust something that you need to have in your annual report in order to tick a few boxes. but that diverse teams can be better, be more efficient, be faster, you know, and come to better and greater results. so that�*s why our clients want to work with us. that�*s why they want to learn from us, and that�*s why. and that is also what we want, that we want to inspire them to hire neurodiverse people themselves. well, on that wonderful positive point, kurt schoffer, the big boss of auti conn, a real pleasure, my friend, having you on the show. good luck with everything and i�*d love to check in with you soon. thank you so much. all the best. thanks for having me. and just to say, if you want more information about conditions like adhd, autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia dyscalculia and tourette�*s, you can go to the website adhd foundation .org. there is a wealth of helpful information there. so we�*ve been speaking about the global skills gap and how companies need to look at less well represented communities like autistic people and people with other neurodivergent conditions. well, my next guest, he�*s the boss of one of the biggestjobs companies in the world, recruit holdings, which owns websites like indeed and glassdoor. hisayuki idekoba. a real pleasure having you on the show. and i know you like to go by deko, so that�*s what we�*ll use. and, deko, this week we�*ve been looking at how employers can can look at underrepresented groups, including neurodiverse people to to plug this skills gap. is that something that you�*re starting to see show up when we think about especially neurodiversity challenge, which is still, you know, i think it�*s the beginning of this phase is still beginning. and actually, you know, myself, you know, i have a sister who is having a similar challenge. she had a tough time to find a job, a family had a tough time how to support her. in fact, that in the us., 5.6 million people have autistic situation. research showed 50%, 75% people are unemployed or underemployed. so it�*s definitely still very difficult for them to find a good fit. but the important thing is we need to know as an employer or as a colleague how to be more. inclusive to welcome them as a co—worker. and you say that you want to make hiring more simple, but we�*re also learning that a more individual approach will help neurodiverse people. i mean, i�*mjust wondering if they�*re in danger of, of losing out. actually, you know, we believe it�*s more opposite because what we are seeing is, you know, if you are 100% depending on how to check resumes and a bunch of interviews, sometimes these people are having a tough time how to speak fluently. and we�*re providing more skill tests or assessments for employers. and actually what we are seeing is that employers who is using assessment or skill tests are having faster hires than the employers, which is not using it. so we believe that skill test is probably more fair to alljob seekers to be assessed. and deko, i want to ask you about older people because we have started to see what�*s being called the, the great retirement. that�*s people between the ages of 55 and 64 leaving the workforce. i�*mjust wondering, deko, what are you doing to get that demographic back to work? japan is having terrible challenge with the ageing workforce, but you know, what we have been pushing is based on the needs from elderly workers, which is the biggest demand from elderly workers is the flexibility of work. you know, just think about it. you know, if you became older, they don�*t want to work for 40, 50 hours a week or five days a week. they prefer to have flexibility for work. that�*s the biggest demand. what we are hearing from, i would say it�*s not only japan, all countries. and what we have been doing is how can we slice full time jobs to to be more flexible, just one day, two days a week type ofjobs for two persons. also, we what we are providing is now we call indeed frax, which is more like a shift based hiring or shift based job matching. and, you know, it�*s actually really welcomed by elderly people who prefer to have flexible work. there�*s something like 70 to 100 million people in the united states right now with a criminal conviction. so i�*m wondering, could labour shortages mean more opportunities for people with a criminal record to get back into the workforce? ithink, you know, tighter labour market is helping employers to be more open to hire the people who have criminal records. actually, as you said, 70 million or 100 million people who have criminal record. but the research showed 40% of them can delete these criminal records, but they don�*t know they can delete it. so we�*re supporting the project to letjob—seekers know they can have an option to delete the criminal record. and also we are talking with employers to be more open to hire the people who have criminal record. and i think we are seeing the good progress through this project. do you see people changing jobs more and morejust to keep up with the cost of living crisis? we saw that situation, you know, from last two years, especially in the middle of covid. people who was changing jobs was getting bigger salary bump compared with the people who keeps the same job. but right now, the situation is cooling down and the salary bump for the people who is changing jobs and who keeps the same job seems to be becoming to be similar right now. and deko, i�*m going to end on this one, because at one point or other, many of us, many of us have told a little, little lie on our cv or we�*ve kind of stretched the truth a bit. i�*ve never, of course. but does your software, does it have the capacity to to pick up falsities? everybody was talking about this challenge all the time. but, you know, that�*s why we�*re pushing more skill—based test or assessment type of process to select a good candidate. i think realistically, it�*s probably difficult to fix alljob—seekers�* mindset. maybe, you know, sometimes it�*s not lying. you know, maybe, you know, they�*re trying to, you know, modify a little bit. but that�*s why, you know, we need to deliver better too, to check skills through hiring processes, through online. that�*s very important to fix this challenge. a real pleasure having you on the show, my friend. thanks for your time and we�*ll talk to you soon. thank you for having me. well, that�*s it for this week. i hope you enjoyed the show. don�*t forget, you can keep up with the latest on our global economy on the bbc website or the smartphone app. you can also, of course, follow me on twitter, tweet me, i�*ll tweet you back. thanks for watching. i�*ll see you soon. bye—bye. hello, there. the impacts from storm ciaran continue to be felt. now, on saturday across the uk, it was a day of sunshine and showers, or some longer spells of rain, for some of us, all driven in by an area of low pressure, but the low pressure has been named as a new storm that�*s going to be, again, bringing severe weather to europe. western france, gusts hitting 85mph, strong enough to blow over trees, so, again, there�*s going to be some transport disruption and also power cuts very likely here. all the while, 15—metre—high waves, that�*s as big as the waves could get, battering the coastline of portugal and north—west spain, and in italy, in tuscany, where we�*ve seen severe flooding over recent days, this extra rain certainly isn�*t going to help things. the flooding could get worse before it gets better. now, over the next few hours for the uk, it�*s still quite unsettled. we�*ve got rain, tending to ease to more showery conditions, across parts of northern england, something a bit drier for a time across the west, and temperatures around 3—7 celsius, as we head into the first part of sunday morning. so it will be a chilly start to the day. i think, through sunday morning, there will be further showers coming and going across eastern scotland, eastern england. otherwise, it�*s a fine and sunny and dry start to the day. however, into the afternoon we�*ll see showers build, particularly across western areas. but with the winds flowing in more from a west—north—westerly direction, that�*s crucial for those in southern england that have been affected by those really heavy showers and flooding, while those winds should push the showers offshore at last, so it should be a dry day in the far south. for those celebrating great great uncle guy�*s night, well, a few more showers coming and going, particularly across western areas, some clear spells and you�*ll need to wrap up warmly. it will be quite a chilly one. into monday�*s forecast, then, and things looking unsettled this time across the north and west of the uk, with some showers or longer spells of rain here. a few showers elsewhere across england and wales, but moving through fairly promptly, given the brisk westerly winds, and temperatures continue to run a little bit below average. now, deeper into the new week, we�*ll replace the mixture of sunshine and showers with more general outbreaks of rain, as we head in towards the middle part of the week. and of course, with the grounds completely saturated, following our prolonged spell of wet weather, we�*ll have to watch carefully to see if we see more flooding issues, as this band of rain works through. it does clear through and it will be followed again by a mixture of sunny spells and showery conditions towards the end of the week. bye for now. good morning. welcome to breakfast with ben boulos and sarah campbell. 0ur headlines today: israel continues it�*s bombardment of gaza as hamas claims more than 30 people have been killed in an airstrike on a refugee camp. the united nations says nearly 1.5 million people in gaza have been displaced since the start of the conflict, with around half living in un run shelters. a new survey suggests one in ten working mothers have left theirjobs because of spiralling childcare costs. a memorial service has been held to remember ice hockey player adam johnson who died after suffering a serious neck injury in a game last weekend. good morning. arsenal manager mikel arteta calls it embarassing and a disgrace, as more var controversy — this time at newcastle — brings arsenal�*s unbeaten premier league start to an end. good morning. sunny spells and one or two— good morning. sunny spells and one or two showers but it should be a drier_ or two showers but it should be a drier day— or two showers but it should be a drier day compared to yesterday. i will have _ drier day compared to yesterday. i will have the full forecast later in the programme.