Unemployed youngsters

Both of my eldest GSs passed their 11+ and attended a very good school here on The Wirral infact it is the most sort after school in Merseyside the elder of the two went on to Uni and has now after finishing his course has had to abandon his hopes of getting into Law as the pupilage stage of his career is far to expensive for him or his mother fund,he would have to find over £14.000 for the year to pay for his pupilage with a Law firm and all the places are already filled,his brother went into an apprentership with an engineering firm and has just finished his 3 years he has been selected to work at Land Rover UK as a diesel mechanic on a big contract that has been granted in Liverpool,so now elder GS is working as a barman in a chain of well known restaurants he is earning a good living but it is not what he wanted to do.

It is an interesting subject because youngsters have expectations but so do employers. Some degrees really do not have much worth and as a recruiter I knew which were the better universities and which were not very good at all. We had a graduate from an excellent university apply for a basic job so turned him down because we didn't think it was in his interest to work for us. We always tested all applicants and it was amazing how badly a great many graduates performed on them. I took on a waiter who performed well on the tests and turned out to be excellent and got promoted a couple of times.

We don't live in an unemployment blackspot but it is interesting to note the experience of a friend's 3 GSs. They are 19, 18, 17 and 16. Two of them have just accepted apprenticeships, one has been offered a job at a large company and the other is living off the state. The 3 who have jobs before even leaving school have all done things like scouts, windsurfing competetively, part time jobs and held posts in school so they had plenty to put on their CVs. There is a 'system' for applying for apprenticeships in this area and they all go through a sort of clearing system. The boys used that but also went out proactively applying and got their jobs that way.

The other one had a few retail and bar jobs but couldn't hold them down and now doesn't even try. He has a flat because he doesn't want to live at home and we all pay for it.

VQ - my family live in Brough and Driffield. Haute Savoie is prettier!

Sorry Greatnan I misunderstood. I don't live in the France. I live near Hull.

I agree with Greatnan. Nowadays school leavers are so much encouraged to go to University or on to some college or other and are told that they will get a well-paid job at the end of it all. Universities are turning out so many graduates all with the same degree, same ideas, same expectations and there are very few jobs for them. Two of my children have been through university and I would not encourage anyone to send their children to uni unless they were going to come out in one of the professions. My daughter has a 2-1 from a good Scottish uni and a further qualification in journalism and she is lucky to have a minor job on a small publication. Of her friends from her journalism course she is the only one with a job in anything like what she is qualified in - the others have jobs in catering and retail and the further away they are from graduation the less likely it is that they will get the job they are looking for as there is always a fresh crop of graduates for the employers to choose from.
I would now advise any school leaver to try to get into an apprenticeship and get training on the job.

Hello, Vampire Queen - I live in Haute Savoie, France - where do you live?

Hey Greatnan we're neighbours !

I agree baNANA internships are a rip off. I know they say they give the young person a chance to gain experience but if there is work for them to do then they should be paid for it. It reminds me of the YTS in the seventies when young people were supposed to be trained and actually spent time doing work that no one else wanted to do. I had a friend at the time who spent eight hours a day for six months putting leaflets into envelopes. Before the YTS scheme they'd leased a machine to do it but it was cheaper to have a trainee do it so they sent the machine back.

My youngest son has just got his degree and is working in a clothes shop as a sales assistant. He has come back to this job which he first secured in his gap year after A levels and returned to it in the Christmas and summer holidays when he came back home from university. It's not particularly well paid or enjoyable but in the current climate better than nothing and possibly the retail experience he has gained will count for something on his CV. We both get annoyed at the idea of internships, he because he feels he should be paid for work undertaken and me because I think internships presuppose parents will give you ongoing financial support. OK for people with the backgrounds of David Cameron/Nick Clegg/Ed Millaband and their ilk who have never lived in the real world but for other mere mortals not necessarily feasible.

The huge expansion of university education has led to many young people having their expectations raised and then dashed. I wouldn't advise anyone to spend three or four years studying unless they were entering one of the professions where a degree is essential. It seems better to try to get into employment as early as possible and look for training/further education as they go along. One of my grandsons has an MSc and has applied for hundreds of jobs - he is now ready to take any kind of work he can find, but unfortunately the Hull area is one of the worst black spots for unemployment.
He is willing to move away, but his mother has severe health problems and he feels he cannot leave her.

I agree. They need some motivation to get up in the morning, otherwise it can be a downhill slope. I don't have any answers either - it was so different when I left school. You could walk into a job, and if you didn't like it there was always another one.

I think young people need the routine of employment and the sense of value that work can give you. We put our children into a system at 3 to 5 where they have a fixed routine for the next 11 or so years then, if they can't find a job, we leave them to their own devices and wonder why they can't cope.

I know this is a generalisation and not all young people react badly but we need to give our young people expectations. If their only expectation is to be unemployed then they rightly ask 'what's the point'.

I don't have the solutions just posing the question really.

Yes I have thought the same - but till tough on those youngsters who are unemployed - my nephew is going on to continue in education ofter completing his degree as there doesn't seem any jobs for him - no network on a plate for him.