I left school in 1972 and walked straight into an apprenticeship. Had I not liked that job it would have been the easiest thing in the world to move on, because my generation was in demand by industry. There was very little excuse not to be in full time work because jobs were plentiful, the 'Tax Credit' didn't exist to subsidise lousy wages and the need to require employers to pay the 'Minimum Wage' didn't apply because bosses knew their people would walk if not paid reasonably. I finished my apprenticeship in '77 just two years before a certain person declared that Britain was now to be looked upon as 'Post Industrial' and run a 'Service Economy' in which Brits need no longer get their hands dirty.
Today we push 50% of school leavers into higher education which conveniently keeps them out of unemployment stats for three years. The government sponsors six month 'apprenticeships' after which a young person will quite likely be shown the door and the next taken on, which has to be as demoralising as can be imagined for those concerned. Graduates take 'Internships' for no pay with highly profitable corporations in an attempt to kick-start a career, this coming after the running up of a demoralising debt, the price of gaining a degree. Others are forced to accept zero hours contracts that actually require them to put in a full week made up of compulsory overtime and whereby sick pay, holiday pay, and maternity leave are denied and a person can be dismissed with ease. On top of these unhappy circumstances comes the tax credit scheme employers are able to manipulate whilst paying lousy wages that must then be subsidised into a 'living wage' using taxpayer funded money. As for the minimum wage, that's a bad joke and those laughing least and being used as slave labour are the under 18's. We've millions of kids abandoned to existing on sink estates and attending sink schools and an underclass devoid of a work ethic has been bred, a 'National Feature' that didn't exist when my working lifetime began.
Mr Shapps... you speak weasel words sir.
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