Former Amazon Europe Boss Georgia Brown Says “Throwing Money” At “Workforce Crisis” In UK Film & TV Will “Exacerbate The Problem”

deadline.com:

“Throwing money” at the “workforce crisis” in UK film and TV will “exacerbate the problem” rather than solving it, according to the former boss of Amazon in Europe.

Georgia Brown, who now chairs the UK’s Screen Sectors Skills Task Force, delivered a passionate plea for the industry to take a holistic approach to resolving the “crisis” during an appearance in front of the UK’s British Film & High-End TV Inquiry this morning, which was titled “How can the UK film industry combat its workforce crisis?” According to Brown, the industry is now comfortably meeting a BFI-set demand to spend 1% of production budgets, or £100M ($127M), on training, but that this spending is far too fragmented. “We know we are collectively spending more than 1% but I will keep coming back to the fact that it’s not a money question,” she added. “Throwing more money won’t solve this, it will exacerbate the problem.

We need to reorganize the way we are operating to effectively deploy capital in the right areas. We are spending a significant amount on skills but collectively it’s not adding up to the sum of its parts.” Brown quoted data from a recent investment survey as an example, which found that while the industry is desperate for more help for mid-level and senior roles, only 27% of its collective skills investment is going towards the upper echelons.

Industry bodies simply hadn’t realized the need to properly resolve this until very recently, she posited. “Those in the middle of their careers were promoted too soon during Covid and that was exacerbated by the huge impact of Covid on mental health and the ability to retain crew and knowledge,” added Brown, who ran Amazon Europe for five years, overseeing the likes of Clarkson’s Farm, Good