This is what failure looks like

We have all been affected by Covid and by the conflict in Ukraine. Goverment policy in both these areas has not helped. The one factor which is entirely self inflicted is BREXIT.

The government could at least recognise what they have done and take pragmatic steps to mitigate the effects on thier errors.

Years of mis-directed education leaving the country with a poorly equipped native workforce. Many of us saw this coming but our concerns no matter how well put have consistently been ignored in the pursuit of a quick profit without planning for a more prosperous future.

Setting aside the problems of poverty and ensuring that every household has a decent income, which is, of course, an entirely different problem, dealing with distribution, not quantity, exactly why should we expect to have ever growing incomes and standards of living?

Every £1, and certainly every £11,000 of incomemeans a larger and greedier demand for the earth resources, already groaning under the demands the current population - and European nations, like the USA and many Asian countries are making demands on the earth resources many times their per head share.

Let us stop greedily grabbing all we can and constantly pushing and shoving to get more and more and concentrate on making sure that the huge oversized heap of resources we already have is more evenly distributed.

Misdirected education, combined with falling industrial production, the so called service economy has failed because much of what we consume has to be imported.

Not just compared with Germany, with Korea, USA and China, all have increased wage levels far faster than U.K., they are all manufacturing economies.

Investment in manufacturing industry like new plant and machinery is what increases productivity. This has not happened at a level high enough to ensure our resilience particularly since Brexit when investment has almost come to a halt

And people Whitewave. Firms have been too keen/lazy/cost averse to run apprenticeships over many years. They’ve been happy just to ‘buy in, ready made’ from Europe. Short term gain for long term pain in my opinion. Or ‘we reap what we sow’. Which hasn’t been much so we shouldn’t be surprised.

Monica " exactly why should we expect to have ever growing incomes and standards of living?" what we need are incomes and standards and costs of living all to be in balance with one another and in balance across the lives of everyone, from CEOs to the newest apprentice, from service industries to manufacturing and retail, from food industries to bin men.

What we don't need is for costs and income to keep playing leapfrog with one another and rising in turn, or for one industry or one essential expenditure to increase in cost so that the others are obliged to rise also, as their costs are tied to their use of those resources.

How to achieve that without freezing prices and/or wages at some artificial level that may be grossly unfair to some people is what government financial experts are supposed to advise on, not how individuals can ensure that their personal income is as high as it can be bumped.

“Firms have been too keen/lazy/cost averse to run apprenticeships over many years. They’ve been happy just to ‘buy in, ready made’ from Europe. Short term gain for long term pain in my opinion. Or ‘we reap what we sow’. Which hasn’t been much so we shouldn’t be surprised.”

Companies would love to have more apprentices, the problem is that not enough young people want to do the 3 or 4 yrs training to become skilled in any trade. University is the easy option, they often complete a generic degree which qualifies them for nothing.

At 22 yrs old far too many find themselves with no salable skills and have to take non graduate work to pay the rent, 50% of graduates are in this trap.

We do need really attractive apprenticeship schemes, and help for businesses/colleges to run them. I don't believe that they would be unattractive to many youngsters. Some like in hairdressing and beauty run very well atm, not sure about plumbing, electrics, building etc - often well paid jobs..

My local experience is that when you get a well run small business they tend to take on family members or close friends to train up. It does mean that the family of the youngster have to carry on supporting them and that might be hard these days in very low income situations.

Wyllow3

We do need really attractive apprenticeship schemes, and help for businesses/colleges to run them. I don't believe that they would be unattractive to many youngsters. Some like in hairdressing and beauty run very well atm, not sure about plumbing, electrics, building etc - often well paid jobs..

Education needs a big overhaul, particularly further education, students need to concentrate much more on career training. At present almost any school leaver with marginal results can get a university place if the want it, without any clue about a career. Or even worse a leaver with good results and unrealistic career choice that has very few openings.

As a business we have decided to employ Saturday boys/girls it is beneficial to us along with giving the young people an idea of what it’s like in the workplace.

If more companies rolled this out if could help youngsters to see what it’s like outside of the classroom and they get paid.

Simply taking on extra staff will do nothing for the UKs productivity unless the staff are help to produce more by investing in the business by buying in up to date plant and machinery.

Investment is what is needed and sadly lacking.

But this is nothing new the government has always known this since industrialisation first started.

Whitewavemark2

Simply taking on extra staff will do nothing for the UKs productivity unless the staff are help to produce more by investing in the business by buying in up to date plant and machinery.

Investment is what is needed and sadly lacking.

But this is nothing new the government has always known this since industrialisation first started.

It is down to the companies owners to invest in plant and machinery, there were incentives in the recent budget to do just this.

"The average person is £11000 worse off than they would have been if the rise in salaries had continued to do so under Labour."

I don't quite follow the above statement as it implies that Labour is at fault.

One reason why people want to increase their incomes is the ever increasing price of houses and the lack of affordable houses for rent (not private landlords). For the majority it is their major investment and they want the value to increase.

I would put the beginning of many of our problems at the sell off of public housing and the associated ban on using the proceeds to build more and the privatisation of utilities. All of which began under Thatcher.

Katie59

“Firms have been too keen/lazy/cost averse to run apprenticeships over many years. They’ve been happy just to ‘buy in, ready made’ from Europe. Short term gain for long term pain in my opinion. Or ‘we reap what we sow’. Which hasn’t been much so we shouldn’t be surprised.”

Companies would love to have more apprentices, the problem is that not enough young people want to do the 3 or 4 yrs training to become skilled in any trade. University is the easy option, they often complete a generic degree which qualifies them for nothing.

At 22 yrs old far too many find themselves with no salable skills and have to take non graduate work to pay the rent, 50% of graduates are in this trap.

So true. Far too many go to university ‘for the experience’, scraping into a third rate one with fairly poor A levels, and find out too late that the cost of the experience will burden them for years and their degree opens no doors. Much more emphasis needs to be put on the value of vocational qualifications.

Dinahmo

"The average person is £11000 worse off than they would have been if the rise in salaries had continued to do so under Labour."

I don't quite follow the above statement as it implies that Labour is at fault.

Blair was certainly on the right track during his first term, but deregulation went too far, credit was too easy and the banks got greedy. Lack of caution has caused the current banking crisis, nobody took account of what might happen if interest rates rose, or maybe they just thought they were too big to fail.

Maybe Labour will get elected and make the changes needed but don’t expect it to be easy

“vocational qualifications.”

That term has to change to “technical qualifications” where training is for a career skill, it involves work placements and relevant theoretical learning alongside.

It seems to me to be a bit of a chicken and egg situation.

Where is the incentive for businesses to invest in training and machinery when the domestic market has diminished because of austerity keeping wages low and cuts in public spending leading to people having less money to spend and loss of business with the public sector. In addition, they have lost easy access to the huge overseas market on our doorstep with no meaningful substitute in prospect?

On my way out for a few hours. I'll be interested to see how this discussion develops.

The chicken is to have a career decision at 18yr based on the “realistic” prospects for the student, that needs schools to have a much more employment relevant curriculum.

Katie59

The chicken is to have a career decision at 18yr based on the “realistic” prospects for the student, that needs schools to have a much more employment relevant curriculum.

I think that might be only marginally relevant.

The bigger question mark lies over the available markets...

There is a problem which needs to be sorted out with apprenticeships. Say a plumber takes on an apprentice. The young person has to go to college for some of the time, so is not available to work on those days. Fair enough. The trouble is, that when the plumber and the college have supplied all the training needed for the apprentice to qualify, the newly trained plumber is very likely to go offshore or to some other job which is better paid than just working as a local plumber with the trainer. This is what I have been told by our plumber, who is coming up to retirement, at which point we will be short of a plumber. Presumably the same thing applies to other trades, even though there seems to be endless work available for the few plumbers, electricians, joiners etc who do exist.

Wheniwasyourage

There is a problem which needs to be sorted out with apprenticeships. Say a plumber takes on an apprentice. The young person has to go to college for some of the time, so is not available to work on those days. Fair enough. The trouble is, that when the plumber and the college have supplied all the training needed for the apprentice to qualify, the newly trained plumber is very likely to go offshore or to some other job which is better paid than just working as a local plumber with the trainer. This is what I have been told by our plumber, who is coming up to retirement, at which point we will be short of a plumber. Presumably the same thing applies to other trades, even though there seems to be endless work available for the few plumbers, electricians, joiners etc who do exist.

There are some apprentices staying the course but nowhere near enough, school leavers just don’t have the commitment to completed the training. They get bored away from their mates doing repetitive work, the schools have not instilled any work ethic at all.

Plumbers apprenticeships are not going to tackle the decline in the UKs fortunes

Wyllow3

We do need really attractive apprenticeship schemes, and help for businesses/colleges to run them. I don't believe that they would be unattractive to many youngsters. Some like in hairdressing and beauty run very well atm, not sure about plumbing, electrics, building etc - often well paid jobs..

We really do need this. My neighbour’s son aged 19 has been trying without any success to get an apprenticeship in either plumbing or electrics or plastering and there’s nothing for him. Too few being chased by too many, sadly.