Not just the recent announcements of job losses in the steel industry, but I've noticed a significant number of companies from diverse areas of the economy shedding jobs to an extent I haven't seen since 2008. Anyone else noticed this? I'm kind of wondering what more can be done if we're heading into a new dip, since interest rates are still near rock-bottom after 6 years and the vast money printing scheme only seems to have ended up in higher propery and share prices. Are we f***ed - again?
I think that, the natural recession we are advancing to, does not always produce smooth figures.
We all want more for less and, we would all like to do less work to get it.
When, eventually, we do learn to rely less on the money, and more on the global logistics, we will all have more time to use in other areas. Hopefully, all in good cause.
There are areas which are growing, and struggling to find suitable staff. There is always a change in the workforce even when we're not in recession. Many power-hungry industries have gone over the last 10+ years as we applied green taxes. That exported the jobs to other countries (and exported the non-green-ness too). We then spent that extra tax revenue on uneconomic power generation schemes.
A significant challenge is that many folks leaving education in this country do not have the right skills for the workplace, and this is not just at the lower ability end. This leaves UK industry with the choice of either bringing in migrant workers (a door which government is closing), or exporting those jobs to countries where the skills can be found. Organisations that can't do that like the NHS end up with a massive skills shortage. The education system needs a radical change to meet todays and tomorrows requirements, rather than those of 50 years ago. This applies across all ability groups. It also needs to cope with lifetime education - retraining people throughout their lives as the skills required of the workforce change (such as those steel workers).
I was doing IT upgrades in an Employment Agency in Middlesbrough this week and all the staff chatter was about the agency a couple of doors down that was going bankrupt as a result of SSI (Redcar Steel) going bust without paying the agency for the contract workers that the agency had already processed the salaries for.
That's because they (unreasonably IMHO) expect their new hires to be already trained up in the particular systems and processes that they use, instead of just being generically trained in the base skill set required, but capable of learning a particular system in a matter of days.
In days past companies would happily have taken the most suitable person and trained them but in this era of globalisation there's now a new solution:
1) make the requirements so difficult, no-one can fill them
2) whinge to the government that there shortage of Skill XYZ so that it gets added to the Tier 2 Shortage Occupation List.
3) employ someone from overseas who, funnily enough, doesn't actually have the skills that were required in the first place, so they have to train up anyway
And why do they do this?
because the person recruited at 3 will work for half the salary of the person recruited at 1.
Absolutely right. So, isn't time we asked the kiddies starting school what are their interests? They may be more willing to learn whatever it takes to achieve it?
I was fortunate enough to spend just 7 months in a training centre, for introduction to construction, with school kids considered dysfunctional. More than a few hours a week in school drove the kids mad. Within weeks of having tools in their hands they were asking for full week schedules.
As they settled into the new, no pressure, environment, some of these guys were producing some very nice work. Naturals!
This says something about current schooling. Some people are academic while others tactile.
There was a docu' some years back about adults in their 50's(?), who could not read. One man went on to teach them. A few found it impossible to learn in spite of the pupils willingness. Eventually, the teacher considered tactile methods and found that, once the pupil held the letters of the word in their hands, just how fast they could put the words to memory. They learned very quickly.
When I left university in 1983, apprenticeships were still running in many of the traditional industries. (OK, they weren't called that for graduates, but companies took on graduates and expected to train them for a couple of years before they started repaying for that time invested.)
However, apprenticeships were already failing by then. Why? My year's intake was 25 graduates. By the two year point, 22 had left and only
3 of us remained. After 5 years there were just 2 of us. (We both stayed almost 15 years, and then left within weeks of each other.) Many of those who left took their learned skill and worked for a competitor. Basically, apprenticeships worked back in the days of a job for life. However, that hasn't existed for decades, and companies which invest years of training will likely just find that used against them, which they can't afford.
Given this, training needs to be looked upon as a benefit to the country as a whole rather than just an individual employer. It needs to be part of the education system, and as I said in the other post, not something that only lasts until you are 16/18/21 which was for the defunct job-for-life-which-never-changes.
And the nature of competition is that it weeds out the poorer performers too.
Not very many have actually.
That doesn't happen often either.
Spent a lot more than that tax revenue on that in fact.
That is very arguable.
Not really, particularly with medicine and close.
That doesn't happen much with skills.
For other reasons. More because far more foreigners are prepared to put the effort into getting qualified than the locals are.
Essentially because they can't just go on benefits like the locals can.
Its already had that with medicine and not necessarily radical change that makes any sense either, particularly with full degrees now being required to even wipe someone's arse or change their dressings or given them their meds etc.
There isn't much of that left anymore.
No it does not. The most capable groups do fine in any education system.
But most of them aren't capable of doing the work like medicine that still has plenty of jobs.
Surely not? After all the last one was caused solely by the appalling fiscal policies of the last labour government, and we've had the superb austerity policies of the Tories ever since. And everyone knows they can do no wrong.
They don?t have a clue about what work they will be doing.
And if you asked one I know, he'd say dinosaurs.
They may be more willing to learn whatever it
Kids just starting school are taught the basics, reading, writing and basic arithmetic and do get taught that rather better than they used to be. Hardly any now leave school not being able to read anymore.
Yes, the school system has always concentrated on educating the kids who will go to uni etc. Mad.
You don?t see too many leave school not being able to read basic stuff like signs anymore.
Yep. We need to bring back grammar schools. And technical schools. The last decades of socialist shit (ie comprehensive schools) has utterly failed. And proper discipline.
The same thing happens with train drivers (which are effectively apprentices in that the employer does all the training) which never used to be a problem under BR. I believe they have a system of cross compensation the new employer has to pay the old employer for any recent elements of training.
Perhaps companies could offer apprenticeships and receive payment from the government. The company's motives would be to still try and keep as many of the good ones, but they would not lose out if people leave.
That is true - but once at secondary school, they tend to get a better idea that they are more inclined to maths, science, or languages or music, or none of the above but do like doing sport or practical things.
longer ago than that. Our now 47 yo daughter, when she was 3, was learning to read. A mother of a similar aged girl said. "We aren't teaching her to read - that's something for school to do."
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