Nearholmer wrote: ↑31 Mar 2023, 10:35pm
Much as I think the electorate was sold a pig in a poke over Brexit, Ossie is right that there is something going on in the employment market, although how much that is due to Brexit I’ve yet to work out.
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And we have changed the immigration rules. The first analyses of the effects of this are coming through, and here's the best that I know: "The post-Brexit immigration system: where next?": https://ukandeu.ac.uk/the-post-brexit-i ... here-next/
So you're saying that the EU caused the higher unemployment rate before we left,how so?
Yes we had freedom of movement but the government could've demanding higher standards of building worker qualifications and not allowed cheap labour into the UK market
From what I've heard from folks who know about the building trade , most of the Eastern Europeans who came over to work in the industry have served proper apprenticeships. A lot of British workers haven't.
I doubt it's possible to serve a real apprenticeship these days, with all appearing to be so called modern apprenticeships, mostly lasting about a year not the five of a proper apprenticeship. Time was when someone who'd done but a years training for a skilled job would have been regarded as a dilutee and certainly wouldn't have got a green card from the AUEW.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
I have asked people who claim to be apprentices if they have indentures. So far not one has. Modern apprenticeships seem to be largely a joke.
Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
I would never want a child of mine to go into an apprenticeship with one of the many firms that seem to use them as a cheap labour system, but OTH there are firms that provide really first class training, so it’s about using nous to find the latter sort.
Indentures, BTW, aren’t the indicator that once they were; there are far better indicators of whether a training scheme is good, bad, or indifferent. Drop-out rate is a simple one, and if a firm can’t cite that honestly and simply, I’d be suspicious.
Last edited by Nearholmer on 1 Apr 2023, 11:47am, edited 2 times in total.
pete75 wrote: ↑1 Apr 2023, 11:04am
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I doubt it's possible to serve a real apprenticeship these days, with all appearing to be so called modern apprenticeships, mostly lasting about a year not the five of a proper apprenticeship.
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It's a difficult topic. There are plenty of excellent apprenticeships. But there have also been many reorganisations of different schemes. And many of the positions currently counted in the official statistics don't bear much resemblance to how the term was previously used.
Some of the emotion in this discussion comes from the massive reduction in large manufacturing companies and factories in the UK, some from identity politics, and some from general declinism.
The bit that interests me is what we do to make the future better than it would otherwise be.
Indentures set out what one would learn, how one would act, how long the apprenticeship would last. Apprentices duties and employers duties and obligations. Without any such thing as a contract the term apprenticeship becomes meaningless. Companies such as Rolls Royce, Airbus or whatever and JCB have decent schemes but it seems almost any employer can use the term and thus trash the concept. Most of what are termed apprenticeships are short term traineeships. A bit like terming dustmen refuse operatives only much worse.
Student Apprenticeships seem to have been rediscovered after 50 years.
Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
The fact that nearly half of apprentices drop-out before finishing, most citing the poor quality of their scheme, is a really strong indicator that there is something seriously wrong.
al_yrpal wrote: ↑1 Apr 2023, 11:55am
Indentures set out what one would learn, how one would act, how long the apprenticeship would last. Apprentices duties and employers duties and obligations. Without any such thing as a contract the term apprenticeship becomes meaningless. Companies such as Rolls Royce, Airbus or whatever and JCB have decent schemes but it seems almost any employer can use the term and thus trash the concept. Most of what are termed apprenticeships are short term traineeships. A bit like terming dustmen refuse operatives only much worse.
Student Apprenticeships seem to have been rediscovered after 50 years.
In England apprentices must have a contract and a training agreement. The training agreement must include the skill, trade or occupation, the start and end dates, and the amount of training provided by the employer. The employer must make sure that the apprentice works with experienced staff, learns the job-specific skills, and is released for training.
There may be many problems with training and education, but they aren't in under-specification of those aspects of apprenticeship.
AIUI, an indenture is simply a form of contract from an earlier age when the terms were written twice on a single sheet of paper which was then torn in two with jagged edges, with both parties to the contract retaining one piece. Apprenticeships were only one type of contract that was recorded in this way.
Several administrations seem to have identified that apprenticeships are seen as a good thing by people who are more influenced by the lingo than the reality.
thirdcrank wrote: ↑1 Apr 2023, 12:13pm
AIUI, an indenture is simply a form of contract from an earlier age when the terms were written twice on a single sheet of paper which was then torn in two with jagged edges, with both parties to the contract retaining one piece. Apprenticeships were only one type of contract that was recorded in this way.
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Thats where it originated. But indentured labour now describes a contract where the duties of one party are discharged by working for the other, and giving up the freedom not to. Indentured servitude takes that a step further by removing payment for the labour.
I don't see much connection in modern Britain between indenturing and improving education and training.
There is a tiny connection, I think, in that youngsters are young and immature, so the ‘ceremonial’ of signing for themselves a legally binding contract for the first time can make a beneficial impression, but that’s about all.
For apprenticeships, or any other form of training, to work properly, the employer needs to enter into the thing because they know that they can’t make a profit, achieve their objectives, or whatever, without imparting the right skills, knowledge and attitudes to their trainees. Organisations like the military, and remaining big engineering firms do know that …. Without a feedstock of newly trained people they will fail.
I strongly suspect that a lot of firms don’t take it that seriously, they bank on being able to pick-up skilled people by poaching, and in the case of construction in recent years by recruiting immigrants, or they know that they actually don’t need really, deeply skilled people, so can train a person in a few weeks or months. The last lot are the ones who create duff apprenticeships for various reasons, sometimes cynical tax advantage.
The other issue a that we’ve long now had a “ruling class” who wouldn’t know a decent apprenticeship scheme if one fell on them, and frankly don’t value people who aren’t like them, so do no better than paying the whole topic lip service.
Finally, only a truly skilled workforce with the right attitudes can pass on real skills and the right attitude. In too many parts of our economy, the existing workforce s short of skills pass on, because the flywheel already ran down too far.
It’s a right mess, and it will only get sorted out by leadership by people who get the plot, and by applying a by f solid rigour to what does and doesn’t constitute a job that requires a proper training.
If this was entirely the fault of the EU, Germany would be up the same creek, and hey are far less so. A lot of this is a product of the British diseases of class division, laissez-faire, short-termism, and general gimcrackery.
al_yrpal wrote: ↑1 Apr 2023, 11:33am
I have asked people who claim to be apprentices if they have indentures. So far not one has. Modern apprenticeships seem to be largely a joke.
Al
A chap I worked with years ago had served his apprenticeship at a general engineering company in Boston. The firm he did his time with were low payers, paying only union rates. It took them three years after he'd finished his time to sign off his indentures, and that was only because his mother got a solicitor on the case. A fitter/welder, he was an excellent engineer and the best welder I've seen. They wanted to keep him there and stop him from going to a better paid job.
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
My boyhood chum took an apprenticeship with a large electrician. He served his time and was then let go. There was nothing wrong with his conduct but something the company did routinely. A boy's wage for a man's work.
It did him no harm as he then joined the GPO telephone company and years later worked for BT's research facility in Suffolk, ending up in a well paid position there.
