The Government today announced a £1 billion package to help reduce unemployment in the 16-24 age range, which is generally seen as a consequence of the recession.
Whilst the economy was growing strongly between 2001 and 2007, what do you think happened to the unemployment figure for this age group?
It rose by 200 000.
It isn't just recession that puts employers off taking on young British workers. It's the huge amount of hassle involved in employing them. The red tape and bureaucratic nightmare of employment laws introduced over the last 15 years, combined with a growing feeling amongst employers that too many of our school leavers have simply not been prepared for the world of work.
Neither our present Government nor the previous one is likely to admit this however.
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Any prospective employer under this scheme or not should ask for a copy of the applicant's work experience report. I spend weeks every year sorting out placements for kids too idle to do it for themselves and they are returned within days because they won't get out of bed, expect do be doing CEO work with a secretary and company car, and can't take the mildest advice without becoming abusive.
I'll be interested to see how many children-in-adult-bodies are actually retained in employment beyond the statutory time; and, recalling the YTS, how many barely literate, numerate and socialised teens will bellyache that they were merely used for menial labour.
Thank God you're back.
I recently 'retired' from formal PAYE employment after 10 years at a university. I continue to work there doing the same stuff but on a self-employed basis. Foolishly, I thought I was escaping the bureaucracy but continuing to enjoy the work. The Finance Director and HR Director have now directed that I submit a copy of my passport photograph with my invoice. They know who I am, and they know it's barking! Apparently, it is a request from the Immigration and Border Controls Agency to ensure that no foreigners are working at the College (their words not mine). Of course, it's only a one-time effort; but, it does rather say something about the degree of 'trust' that now exists in society, let alone the spinelessness of officials who when asked to police on behalf of the State should resist it or charge for the service. Perhaps I should submit the invoice on Wednesday!
The issue is really one of how we prepare youngsters for work.
By the age of 14 the vast majority of kids know if they want to pusue an acedemic path or a practical one. It really is a nonsense to squeeze them all into an acedemic route which leads to boredom and disruption. I believe that good apprenticeship training should be available for youngsters from that age so that by the age of 16 they are ready for the work place. I would also suggest that such training has a cost implication in the same way as students have to. That would teach them that their is no such thing as a free lunch in this life.
It has been strenuously resisted because the jobs with status and (eventual) high pay are still gained via the academic route, and the academic route tends to be populated with more middle-class than working-class children.
However much your idea has to its credit in the way of waste-avoidance and plain common sense, anything that the fascist Left perceives as being more likely to be enjoyed by those whom God hath already blessed with half a brain and a comfortable income, will be binned as elieist and unfair.
Ambition no longer seems to exist amongst large numbers of our youngsters - they aren't pushed by their parents as were children of my generation. Perhaps it's because the state pays them too much for being unemployed.
They are also given an unreasonable expectations by many schools, now that apparently teachers must never be critical of pupils' abilities in school reports. When I look back at what was written in some of my reports, or what my sister, as a teacher, wrote in the early days of her career, and compare them with the sort of meaningless comments my own children got on their reports, something has clearly gone wrong.
Probably the first time in their life that some of out school leavers are told that the are totally useless is when they go after a job with a non-politically correct employer!
I have got three boys from the ages of 16 to 20. The first 2 went to a grammar school the last to the local technology school. The first has gone to uni and the other 2 have dropped out of A levels. Frustrating for us, as both are clever lads. But neither can be bothered academically, totally turned off by school, the first only just scraped uni. No challenge for them, didn't want to do home work and hated course work. Schools are now biased far more to the way girls work than boys. Even when they go to Scouts girls are allowed in. It is the total evisceration of everything that used to make you a man (or boy)that I cannot stand. It has to be team games no more lone warrior, running the mile or throwing the javelin. To many women teachers and female heads at both schools as well.
Complete crap for most lads.
Daedalus
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