I heard once that 89.2% of statistics are made up on the spot - but regardless of how trustworthy they are I wanted to begin today's post on apprenticeships with a look at
some rather startling statistics. It gives you an indication of the sort of labour market that school and college leavers, who receive their results next month, will graduate into. Sadly, it's a bleak outlook.
I've mentioned before that one of my main roles in my position as
CEO is to attract talent to the organisation. Sometimes this is
mistakenly viewed as shorthand for finding the best graduates, but
it's certainly not the case that universities are the only pools of talent that we look in. This is in part due to the quality of graduates, but also because other pools can be just as rich. These are record times for apprenticeships and our
own apprenticeship recruitment scheme has so far been an unqualified success.
We're not the only ones looking at the vocational sector either - last year there were 457,200 apprenticeship starts, 63% more than in 2010. Interestingly, the majority of apprenticeships were started by women. What's most remarkable is that this boom in apprenticeships is happening despite schools' efforts to direct pupils elsewhere. Blair's 1999 incantation that 50% of 18-30-year-olds should experience higher education still looms over secondary education and there's a terrible bias pushing young people towards university. A recent report by City & Guilds showed that 75% of school leavers had been informed about university but only 46% had been told about apprenticeships, you would imagine that fewer still had been told about gap years, distance learning or how to get a job. It seems especially unfair to railroad young people into an option that could leave one in four of them in debt and without a job, especially when alternatives exist.
Our own apprenticeship recruitment has involved 10 young people (you can meet them all and find out about them here) undertaking a series of tasks which have been monitored and reviewed. They've been doing everything from completing a day with one of our trainers, developing a work experience programme for Year 10 boys and selling tickets to a local rugby match for Salford Reds. Their reaction has been very positive and the trainer in particular was impressed by how eager to learn they were. In the boardroom, where I deputise for Alan Sugar, it's apparent that these are a set of able and likeable people and it's going to be very hard to see which five get the positions on offer.
I don't think I'm alone in being shocked at the state of some of the graduates we sometimes see. Not everyone who comes through the door with a 2:1 is any good at anything. I’m incredulous at how poor you can be and end up with a good honours degree, from a reasonable course and a reasonable university. Clearly, this is generalising - good graduates should (and do) demonstrate a depth of thinking and autonomy that you wouldn't expect from an apprentice, there will always be a premium to pay for a good graduate's skills, so I'm certainly not saying it's no longer a worthwhile investment. That said, there will come a point where the search for quality candidates leads organisations elsewhere. For THT we'll continue to examine every source and do what we need to in order to bring the talent into the organisation.
The very best of luck to anyone who has recently finished school or college for the last time, despite the current labour market if you can remain positive and examine all opportunities equally there will be exciting times ahead. I'm always willing to hear from candidates who think that they could help Trafford Housing Trust to achieve its goals, if that sounds like you, get in touch.
- Graduates could be looking at £53,000 of debt for a three year degree course.
- Graduate unemployment for 21-year-olds currently sits at 25%
- 264,000 young people have been unemployed for more than 12 months
- There are 23 applications per job across all sectors in the UK
We're not the only ones looking at the vocational sector either - last year there were 457,200 apprenticeship starts, 63% more than in 2010. Interestingly, the majority of apprenticeships were started by women. What's most remarkable is that this boom in apprenticeships is happening despite schools' efforts to direct pupils elsewhere. Blair's 1999 incantation that 50% of 18-30-year-olds should experience higher education still looms over secondary education and there's a terrible bias pushing young people towards university. A recent report by City & Guilds showed that 75% of school leavers had been informed about university but only 46% had been told about apprenticeships, you would imagine that fewer still had been told about gap years, distance learning or how to get a job. It seems especially unfair to railroad young people into an option that could leave one in four of them in debt and without a job, especially when alternatives exist.
Our own apprenticeship recruitment has involved 10 young people (you can meet them all and find out about them here) undertaking a series of tasks which have been monitored and reviewed. They've been doing everything from completing a day with one of our trainers, developing a work experience programme for Year 10 boys and selling tickets to a local rugby match for Salford Reds. Their reaction has been very positive and the trainer in particular was impressed by how eager to learn they were. In the boardroom, where I deputise for Alan Sugar, it's apparent that these are a set of able and likeable people and it's going to be very hard to see which five get the positions on offer.
I don't think I'm alone in being shocked at the state of some of the graduates we sometimes see. Not everyone who comes through the door with a 2:1 is any good at anything. I’m incredulous at how poor you can be and end up with a good honours degree, from a reasonable course and a reasonable university. Clearly, this is generalising - good graduates should (and do) demonstrate a depth of thinking and autonomy that you wouldn't expect from an apprentice, there will always be a premium to pay for a good graduate's skills, so I'm certainly not saying it's no longer a worthwhile investment. That said, there will come a point where the search for quality candidates leads organisations elsewhere. For THT we'll continue to examine every source and do what we need to in order to bring the talent into the organisation.
The very best of luck to anyone who has recently finished school or college for the last time, despite the current labour market if you can remain positive and examine all opportunities equally there will be exciting times ahead. I'm always willing to hear from candidates who think that they could help Trafford Housing Trust to achieve its goals, if that sounds like you, get in touch.
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