From next spring employers will be asked to sign up to the National Numeracy Challenge.
The charity, National Numeracy, plans to reach a million adults over a five-year period, starting in the workplace.
National Numeracy plans ultimately to extend the scheme to improve maths standards among people not in employment or education.
Chris Humphries of National Numeracy said action was "urgently needed if the UK is not to sink further behind".
National Numeracy says Michael Gove's plans to make pupils learn times tables, long division and fractions earlier imposes a "superficial rigour".
National Numeracy says it welcomes the government's prioritisation of maths, but it warns that the curriculum proposals "contain serious flaws" which run counter to the government's stated aims.
Carwyn Jones AM insisted that the Welsh government was seeking to tackle the problem and stressed that a National Numeracy and Literacy Programme had been set up to address this.
This certainly sounded like a rejection of the prescriptive approach of the national curriculum and the numeracy and literacy strategies.
This damage would be done, Mr Blunkett claimed, "by abolishing the national curriculum, scrapping the literacy and numeracy strategies, ending assessments for seven year olds, abandoning performance-related pay for teachers and denying parents full details of school exam results".
This provides free tuition for adults who have skills below GCSE level - with national Skills for Life qualifications in language, literacy and numeracy.
BBC: NEWS | UK | Education | Poor basic skills 'costing firms'
The National Adult Literacy course addresses a broad range of skills including reading and writing, basic numeracy, listening actively and responding appropriately, developing ICT skills and self-strategic learning, applying problem-solving techniques to real life situations, engaging in critical and consensual discussion, planning performance to attain goals and enhancing interpersonal skills to improve teamwork.
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