The UK turns out way more hairdressers than it actually needs, former government Minister Lord David Sainsbury told an audience at Manchester's Science and Industry Museum this week. Not just a few more - but something like 50% more hairdressers than our economy requires.
And at the same time, a lack of skilled workers in the technical areas prized by industry is putting off big companies from investing in cities like Manchester's. There are some 11,500 job vacancies in digital jobs across Greater Manchester and 54% of employers across the region cannot fill their job vacancies.
Clearly something is going wrong in the way the city's education system provides young people with the skills they need for the world of work, with many further education (FE) colleges equipping them with qualifications that employers don't need and that don't serve the city's wider interests.
The question is what to do about it. And at the Science and Industry Museum event there were growing calls for central government to hand control of the whole system of post-16 education over to local leaders like Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham.
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The calls were led by Mr Burnham himself, who revealed that in his upcoming talks with Tory Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove he would be making a play for his mayoral authority and not Whitehall to decide what students at Greater Manchester's colleges and sixth forms are encouraged to study and what gets funding.
He is one of two metro mayors - along with Andy Street in the West Midlands - about to embark on talks about a 'trailblazer' devolution deal potentially giving him powers beyond any other local leaders outside London.
Control of Greater Manchester's 98 railway stations and the ability to deprive bad landlords of public funds from the benefits system are also on his shopping list, he told the conference organised by the Centre for Cities think-tank.
He will make the case that the current arrangements "are not serving us well and they're not allowing this place to fulfil its full potential or they're not allowing our people to fulfil their full potential".
