Apprenticeships

There's a lot of talk about apprenticeships out there. They're the sort of thing that sound like a great idea. You know, the sort of thing where a young lad or lass come in, maybe not brilliant at school, but keen, hard-working, practical. Join a company and get a trade.

So, I thought I'd take a look at some of the apprenticeships out there by typing in a postcode in Northamptonshire into the Apprenticeships website and seeing what came up.

So, here's the first 2 pages I got:-

Apprentice Nursery Assistant required to work in an Ofsted grade 1 (outstanding) day nursery in Hunsbury, Northampton. 
Main Duties: 
• Caring for children. Ensuring that children are safe and relating well to each other. 
• Being creative and helping to plan activities for the children. 
• Enabling play and participating in play. 

No, that's a job. You hire someone who is good with kids, spend a little time sorting out activities.

Apprentice Teaching Assistant

That's a government job.

Apprentice Mechanical Engineer (Fork Lift Truck Maintenance)

That's an apprenticeship - lots of training needed. Good.

Apprentice Barber

That's "trainee hairdresser", something we've always had jobs in. The job even prefers standard hairdressing qualifications.

Apprentice Nursery Assistant

No, job.

Apprentice Office Administrator

With duties like "Organising and Management of various production paperwork forms for the running of day to day business" that's just an office junior job. Nothing in the job suggesting something more skilled other than that.

Apprentice Machinist Engineer

Some machining, learning some welding. That's an apprenticeship. Good.

Childminding Apprenticeship

Again. Job.

Apprentice Pizza Chef

At Pizza Hut. You're going to be putting toppings on some shipped-in pizza dough. Something a child can do in 30 minutes.

Business Administration Apprentice

"Generally assisting the MD" "filing scanning and photocopying". That's another "office junior".

It's really dispiriting. These are nearly all low-paid jobs, and jobs that require little training investment, which was always the problem - employers wouldn't train people because they could leave and go elsewhere. And a grant of £1500 isn't going to incentivise more advanced apprenticeships. It's just another jobs scheme where you get some money and the government picks up some low-grade training.

Fun With Numbers: David Cameron

From The Daily Mail:

PM slashes the welfare cap to £23,000 a year: £300m in benefit savings 'will help fund millions of apprenticeships'

Woo hoo! I didn't realise that you could persuade employers to take on another apprentice for just £150 a year. [unfortunate decimal point now removed, h/t H in the comments]

That looks like very good value to me, why did nobody think of this before?
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UPDATE: Bayard in the comments insists that "millions" can mean "any number larger than one million", rather than "any number larger than two million" which is my interpretation, in which case, please revise that £150 figure up to £300 Or indeed £299.

An Ed Milliband Whizzo Plan

From the Independent

Companies will be forced to train a British apprentice for every foreign worker they take on if Labour win the next election, party leader Ed Miliband has said.

Speaking in Brighton, where Labour is holding its party conference, Mr Miliband said the proposal was designed to reduce low-skill immigration and help create a “high wage economy”.

The party's plan would compel firms that hire workers from outside the EU to take on a similar number of apprentices from the UK. It claims that the policy would create up to 125,000 high quality apprenticeships over the next parliament.

“In our first year in office we will legislate for an immigration bill which has secure control of our borders, cracks down on exploitation of workers coming here undercutting workers already here, and says to big companies that bring in people from outside the EU that they can do that, within a cap, but they have got to train the next generation,” Mr Miliband said.

I'm not sure if Ed actually said it, but companies can't be forced to train a British apprentice. That would be against EU law. He could force companies to train up an apprentice from within the EU.

But how is this going to reduce low-skill immigration?

Let's imagine you're a software company and you want to bring over an experienced guy from India, especially someone with some rare skills. We're honestly going to force companies to spend money training up a software development apprentice, despite the fact that it then costs that company thousands, perhaps 10s of thousands to do so (after which the person can leave)? Reality: the work will be subcontracted out to India instead.

Or if you're a restaurant and bring over a bangladeshi chef, are we saying they have to now hire another member of staff, even though they only have jobs for one more?

If we want to have more people in jobs with good skills, the solution is as follows-

• Replace benefits with CI, which will encourage people to take jobs.
• Introduce LVT which will encourage more companies to set up in cheaper parts of the UK rather than offshore.
• Convert the old polytechnics back into polytechnics, remove their ability to grant degrees, and instead run more work related courses (e.g. C&G, BTEC) that provide the skills that employers want.
• Link part-time work and polytechnic education. So, either people can go to poly and get a course, or can get a job where 2 days a week, they go to college and learn skills that can be brought into the job.