I love how you just papered over the procurement issue. Chuck as much poorly-argued propaganda our way as you want, but you’re not going to convince people that all these apprentices won’t just be snapped up by big companies while leaving start-ups or organically small organisations in the ditch in the name of competitiveness. How sickeningly neo-liberal… but hey, what else have we come to expect from NuLab? As for your last paragraph: if that is the case, why did labour stand by and let the manufacturing sector rot while it was in power?

The only criticism that rings true is that of making it impossible for small firms to win contracts. A five man firm taking on one apprentice means a 20% increase in staffing, which is impossible to simply absorb.

However, assuming the rule applied only to firms of 50 or more staff there is no good reason for objecting.

There is little to no red tape in proving your firm has an apprentice on the books. Apprenticeships have proved far more effective at getting and keeping people in work than other training or jobs programmes, and best of all, this might actually serve to give UK firms (who know the apprenticeship system and who do their work in the UK) a small advantage over foreign contractors who don’t.

Digby Jones said in a seminar a few months ago that if business didn’t start to act responsibly and train people themselves – as he deemed it their duty to do – then it was innevitable government would force them to.

Alas not this tory government, but maybe a future labour one…

As a headline, it isn’t a bad idea, but it needs fleshing out.

For example, do you need to hire apprentices just to bid for a contract, or can you leave that expense until after you won the contract?

Another area of concern is what small firms do in areas where there simply aren’t any suitable people to hire for their industry, especially in highly skilled industries where the starting point in the company requires a degree at a minimum?

In fact, all the talk is about manufacturing, yet a sizeable percentage of government spending is on services – how are apprenticeships to be handled in the service industry?

Finally, what protections will be in place to ensure the apprenticeships are legitimate and not just a fluffed up version of the internship racket.

The problem of youth unemployment hasn’t sprung up overnight.
The Labour Party was formed to be the voice of the working class, funded through trade union subscriptions.
During their thirteen years of disastrous government, New Labour ignored this ever looming problem and the trade unions failed to use their influence to concentrate the minds of Ministers.
With the conviction that Britain would remain a service sector driven economy and manufacturing thrown to the wall – what need did we have for apprenticeships?
We were constantly being told everyone needed a degree, with the promise that such an achievement would earn you £20k extra a year.
Even the ‘fat bloke’ on my bus knew that we had an unbalanced economy but not Major, Blair or Brown apparently.
As an ex Labour Party member, ex Labour voter and ex trade unionist my over whelming impression was that the people leading these institutions are more concerned with personal power, wealth and privilege. They will promise whatever they think will achieve that purpose
Check out their pay, perks, pensions and pay offs and contrast with their broken promises
Expect more talk, more promises and more tax payers money squandered with ‘private sector providers’ the Tories will do nothing.

The only problem with this article is that most if the points made are just generic arguments in favour of more apprenticeships. But the government can, and will, argue that Vince Cable’s efforts in increasing apprenticeships mean that a scheme like this isn’t necessary. That said, I think that if the proposal were fleshed out a but more then this would be a very good policy for labour’s manifesto.

Does not matter does it Labour are not in power so can come out with all different plans, I remember Labour last great idea for apprenticeships for my grandson two years in Mc Donald’s, he spent two weeks cleaning tables and cleaning the floor getting less money then anyone else because he was training, laugh he left and went to college

“If the government fails to recognise providing them with key skills is important, it does not understand how crucial securing a first job is to sustaining lifelong employment.”

Which is the argument against the minimum wage, isn’t it? As repeated here ad nauseam. The people who lose out are those with no prior experience.

3
Totally agree, but labour also introduced working families tax-credits, in effect, charging the tax-payer for a living wage instead of unions negotiating with employers.
There is no coincidence about the unemployment levels of 18 to 24 year olds, this is the group who are least likely to have children and consequently cannot apply for tax-credits.
Unlike Tim W, I believe the minimum wage should be increased to a level which would create a level playing-field, maybe this might also have an impact on reducing single-parenthood.

Tim W @ 6

The people who lose out are those with no prior experience.

These people will lose out no matter what the minimum wage is set at or if the minimum wage is completely removed, though. No matter what you do ‘no experience’ is still ‘no experience’ at whatever wage level you set at it.

Let us imagine a new shop opening in a given town. They require shelf stackers and they put an advert in the local paper. The same type of people apply for those types of jobs, no matter what the wage is (within reason, obviously if the wages go up to £15 an hour, people who would not consider stacking shelves would be interested), be it six fifty an hour or four quid and hour and the employer will choose the best people for the job, irrespective of the level of wages offered. He wants his shelves stacked as efficiently as possible for as cheap as possible.

What people with no experience need is ‘experience’, not for the people who get the jobs ahead of them to be stripped of dignity.

You despise the minimum wage because you despise the poor, we all get that Tim, so why bother hiding your real objection to the minimum wage behind this charade? You ain’t fooling anybody.

@8 Jim

‘He wants his shelves stacked as efficiently as possible for as cheap as possible’

Exactly. It may be better for him to employ an unskilled worker at £4 per hour rather than a skilled worker @ £6 per hour. It may take longer to get the shelves stacked, but cost the employer less. As the employee gets experience he will get better at his job and become more valueable to all employers thereby increasing his rate.

Fungus @ 10

Exactly. It may be better for him to employ an unskilled worker at £4 per hour rather than a skilled worker @ £6 per hour.

What the fuck are you on? People like you make me ashamed to be British. You hate the minimum wage? Fair enouigh, but why need to dress it up as nonsense like a ‘skilled worker earning 6 quid’?

@5. Robert: “Does not matter does it? Labour are not in power so can come out with all different plans…”

Yes, it does matter. This proposal is a pragmatic or utilitarian one, so there are reasons for all parties to implement something like it. Nor does it matter if the Conservatives or LibDems steal it, as long as apprenticeships are delivered.

@OP, David Merlin-Jones
I don’t think that this proposal will make much direct difference for 19 year old NEETs who, owing to personal circumstances, need a lot more help. However, it might work for those who are already in training by providing a genuine opportunity to practise their skills. It might encourage a few 14 year olds to try harder if training opportunities are visible and it may help a few people leaving prison.

—
On the basis of this press fluff, Labour need to try a bit harder and add some meat to the policy:
http://www.labour.org.uk/labour-plan-to-boost-apprentice-numbers,2011-08-25

The OP, David Merlin-Jones, makes a much better job than John Denham at selling the idea.

@ point 2 – No. There are plenty of other skilled sectors which could take up the slack.

Shame the Tories have, oh, set Film back a decade in a year, and Games – which was already in decline due to insufficient support – is near-dead now.

Moreover, the very low pay levels apprenticeships receive means that they’re often impossible for poorer people to take on as opposed to even minimum-wage jobs.

@6 – No, it’s an argument for a living wage for all, and then a SMALL deduction for apprentice training. If you can get shelves stacked for £4/hour, then you hold it there forever, since there’s no skill involved.

@10

ok, a bettter phrasing would have been experienced rather than skilled. You yourself point out that an experienced worker will get employed rather than the worker with no experience.

Fungus @ 13

Ok, so the experienced person gets the job. No matter how you look at it the minimum wage in this instance is a complete red herring because employers will seek to hire people who are most suited to the job, and making their employer most money in the process irrespective of the price of labour. That is true wherever the minimum cost of labour (via statute or pure market forces) is, be it six quid or three quid an hour.

All you people are doing is attempting to smuggle in this anti minimum wage crap in via any rationale you can find. That is disingenuous and you know it.

I would have more respect if you said something along the lines of ‘I hate the minimum wage, it gives the poor too much money’, that would be at least be honest.

@14

Jim, I have already pointed out that I disagree with your claim that no matter what the employer will seek to hire the best person for the job. This is clearly rubbish. The best self stacker in the world applies for the job but demands payment of £1m per annum – would he get the job or the worker with no experience asking £4 per hour?

As you said in your previous post the employer wants to get the shelf stacked as efficiently as possible and one of the factors is off course cost.

Your comment about me not wanting to give poor people to much money is ridiculous. I want everybody to have the best life possible. This includes people having the right to set their own price for their labour to enable them to get employment.

Employees don’t set wages, employers do. Trying to turn it around that way is downright Stalinist.

@2. IanVisits: “Another area of concern is what small firms do in areas where there simply aren’t any suitable people to hire for their industry, especially in highly skilled industries where the starting point in the company requires a degree at a minimum?”

The only occupations, to my knowledge, where a degree is the minimum qualification for admission are based around medical practice. You can earn a professional qualification as an engineer or lawyer or accountant the long way by part time study.

It is true that some companies recruit lab technicians in 2011 on the basis of a degree, whereas in 1981 they would have employed somebody with good A Levels. In some part that is down to increased skill requirement, in other parts down to degree devaluation.

But I don’t think much of that is relevant to apprenticeships. Apprenticeships are for young people who are bright but, at a particular moment, aren’t ready for A Levels or university. Perhaps never ready, but still bright, taking the next step every couple of years.

Bright teenagers are everywhere. There was no car building culture around Sunderland when Nisan established their first factory, but there were enough bright people to employ. cf British Car Factories from 1896, Collins and Stratton.

“I would have more respect if you said something along the lines of ‘I hate the minimum wage, it gives the poor too much money’, that would be at least be honest.”

I don’t hate the poor. Why would I? I’ve been poor. I do hate poverty though, precisely because I’ve been poor. I would very much like the poor to have more money. Hell, in employing people (as I have done over the years) I’ve gone out of my way to give a chance to people who find it very difficult to gain employment through conventional means.

Damn, I hired a bloke as he came out of prison. Seriously, out he came on Friday, we gave him some cash for a weekend with the girlfriend who had stood by him and he came to work on Monday. I’ve bailed my own employees out of jail: shit, I’ve paid bribes to keep them out of it (admittedly, in another country).

The quid pro quo here was that their wages were going to be, until I’d good hard evidence that they were not recidivists, lower than those without that background.

It worked, in large part, too. There was one recidivist who found that at some point we weren’t going to keep going. Meh, tought shit, eh? Several others who, after a few months, were earning just what their colleagues without that background were earning.

You just don’t seem to understand what an employer is delighted to do to keep a good employee……nor the risks he faces as he tries to find out whether someone is a good employee.

@16

Bollocks. The market sets wages. What do you think would happen if an employer requires a qualified lawyer experienced in international tax law and sets the wage at £12,000 per annum?

19
That’s the theory but tax-credits interfere with that process, absolutely no employer will refuse a subsidy from the taxpayer in order to boost the wage they offer, and further, to attract people who would normally not be able to afford such low wages.
The market for professionals is not affected by tax-credits but the vast majority of people in the service and retail sector, it is.

Fungus @ 15

The best self stacker in the world applies for the job but demands payment of £1m per annum – would he get the job or the worker with no experience asking £4 per hour?

Really? Is that the level you really think this about? You think that is how the World works? The ‘best shelf stacker in the World’ is that a serious comment?

Think about it for a second, then think about for another second.

Somebody like Tescos, or perhaps ASDA or your local shop require shelf stackers. They set a minimum standard for the job. What that is, I have no real idea, but lets say:

Able to work the given hours
Able to read labels
Able to count tins
Able to reach the shelves.
Turn up most of the time.

It is not too difficult to get people of the above calibre, so the pay is low. There are people who can fill that position in the Country, so the shop advertises these positions and two hundred people apply for ten jobs. The ‘best’ ten in the opinion of the shop manager get the job.

The minimum wage is cut, but you get the same type of people applying for the job and guess what, the best ten still get the job, based on exactly the same criteria. Shifting the minimum wage along a scale or scrapping it all together does not make people more attractive to employers, because there are still a surplus of labour and there are people with lower skill sets or between jobs etc that employers would rather employ.

What you need to do is take these youngster off the dole and employ them. You need a shortage of labour to force private sector employers to actually seek out people and employ them.

Cutting the wages of people actually in work does not make people out of work more attractive to employers.

@18. Tim Worstall: “You just don’t seem to understand what an employer is delighted to do to keep a good employee…”

But that is your small employer experience. HR are more commonly shocked by middle management in a middle sized organisation. Seriously, honestly, many HR units are continually appalled by company conduct.

@19 – Then they don’t get. This doesn’t mean that it’s not the employer’s choice, when you’re saying it’s the fault of the lawyer not to be willing to work for that…

There is some merit in the idea only if it applies to larger companies – e.g. those of over 50 employees as another poster has said. But what comes out overall is that basically you want the manufacturing sector to pay for bringing the rest of the economy out of recession. Even there, you are hopelessly muddled about the reality.

“There are simply not enough positions to go round and in the saturated job-market, most vacancies are being filled by those with prior experience.

Boosting the number of apprenticeships in companies and sectors clearly in demand will go a long way to reduce NEET numbers.”

So in the first sentence you state there is NO demand, and then in the next you proceed on the basis that there, er, IS a demand.

“In many industries, the average age of workers is disturbingly high, 50 years old being the norm in the chemical industry. ”

‘Disturbing’ ageism. I would rather have someone with decades of experience working in an industry like that than a raw teenager. So would most people.

The manufacturing industry isn’t responsible for the parlous state of public finances. The two sectors that did such damage to them in the past decade are the banking sector and the public sector. They should be first in line to pay for training the unemployed, not the manufacturing sector which already actually creates productive jobs rather than just being a drain on the public.

Tax bankers bonuses and freeze public sector pay over £30,000. Squeeze the pigs who did so well out of the Blair/Brown years, not the areas of the economy that are not to blame for this crisis.

“Some critics of the scheme have said that this will make procurement tougher for small businesses. Yet given how tough it is already, this is not necessarily negative. The employers who win public- sector contractors are likely to be the most competitive and successful firms in their sector, so training a new generation with the skills and ethos such companies inculcate can only produce a beneficial outcome.”

So sod small businesses, eh? What a contemptible and short-sighted attitude.

@22 Jim

Two hundred people apply. Some have previous experience and some don’t. All other things being equal the employer will hire those with experience. The only way for those without experience to compete is to lower their rate of pay.

The employer needs to make a decision – how much extra is he willing to pay for experience?

The employee needs to make a decision – how much is he worth? Can he get paid more elsewhere because he has experience?

The minimum wage disrupts this process and makes it more difficult for those with the least skills to get employment.

@24 Leon

Yes the employer sets a maximum rate of pay. But the lawyer also sets a minimum rate for his services – both employer and employee set the rate i.e. the market.

26
Tax-credits disrupt the process, therefore, I infer from your comment, about the minimum wage, that you would be in favour of withdrawing them.

The Americans do it only for the disabled, you do not get a contract unless you employ so many disabled, good old labour…. looking to the Yanks again, pitty they did not do this with New Deal and Pathways and work fare. But now they see it as a means of winning the next election laught like hell because I suspect most of the contracts will go to either Germany or France anyway.

Miliband at his best laugh a minute.

@27

Correct. Increase the tax free threshold by an equivalent amount.

29
Unfortunately, many who are now on tax-credits are part-time, consequently, some may not be paying tax currently.

@30

Unlucky. Also if they are not paying tax why are they getting ‘tax credits’?

Removing tax credits would help to simplify the tax system and would enable HMRC to put more resources into tax evasion and non payment of tax.

@30 – Er, unless you’re disabled then if you’re working part-time, you don’t GET working tax credits.

And I see Fungus, it’s “unlucky” that you want to hurt the poor, on top of utterly changing your argument from “employers” to “the market”. Well, there goes your entire argument against the minimum wage, which was based on employer’s choices.

Fungus @ 26

The minimum wage disrupts this process and makes it more difficult for those with the least skills to get employment.

How exactly? How does it change anything? All it does is slide the process further up the pay ladder from, say four quid an hour to six quid an hour. If the same people (or the same type of people) apply for a job the employer is still taking a gamble on the person with least/no experience over a better qualified/more experienced person. If he is down to the last job and has twenty candidates left, he STILL has to take a gamble on who he employs, irrespective of the wage rate. His margins shrink and therefore it is still important to him who gets the job and that they are competent or not is still an issue.

Is it possible that you have had a knee jerk reaction and not thought it through?

Fungus @ 29

Correct. Increase the tax free threshold by an equivalent amount.

How exactly do you do that? What are the amounts at present? Do you know? I bet you don’t so why do you think you could do this?

32
Not totally correct, however, I seem to have got confused with child tax credits which are paid for part-time work, many single-parents claim this, not least because part-time jobs can fit around school hours.
31
I have no idea why they were labelled ‘tax credits’ but if large numbers of people don’t pay tax already how will increasing tax thresholds help?
You may feel that it’s unlucky for those on piss-poor wages if tax-credits are withdrawn but it will be equally unlucky for producers who cannot sell their products.
And why the red-herring of tracking-down tax evaders, shoudn’t we be doing that anyway?

@34 – Yes, that’s child tax credits, the *other* type of tax credit.

That *could* potentially be replaced with raising the personal allowance of parents, it’s working tax credit which is tricker.

“And why the red-herring of tracking-down tax evaders, shoudn’t we be doing that anyway?”

Yes, we should. Which is why the government has reduced the resources available for this – despite the fact they’re revenue positive, and our massive tax gap.

@32 Leon

Yes unlucky in the interests of simplifying the tax system. We will be going back to what we had before there was any such thing as tax credits. I have not changed my argument – I have always said that the market sets wages.

@ 33 Jim

I still believe a minimum wage will have an impact. So the employer has 20 applicants who are prepared to do the work for the minimum wage of £6ph. Logically he will pick the one who he believes is best for the job which may be because this candidate has more experience. However some of the less qualified candidates in order to get work would be prepared to work for £4 ph – a rate at which the more experienced workers would not accept. But because of the minimum wage these less able workers do not have the chance to compete on price.

What is so wrong with two people agreeing a price for something – a price they are both happy with?

The tax free allowance for the 2011-12 tax year is £7,475. I have just googled it. But whether I know what the rate is or not is irrelevant!!! The principal is that the amount of money spent on tax credits is distributed equally amongst all taxpayers – not rocket science!

@31

Yes they should be tracking down tax evaders. Unfortunately Governments have made a poor decsion to reduce the resources of HMRC. We need to simplify our over complicated tax code which makes it very costly to administer. Tax credits in particular have been very problimatic with well publicised errors.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/2795711/Tolleys-tax-bible-doubles-in-size-as-legislation-keeps-piling-up.html

Fungus @ 36

However some of the less qualified candidates in order to get work would be prepared to work for £4 ph – a rate at which the more experienced workers would not accept.

No, because once you scrap the minimum wage, then the more qualified candidates will STILL need to compete for the same types of jobs, because there are still a limited number of jobs open to them. You haven’t magically increased the number of jobs; all you have done is cut the wages for the people ALREADY in jobs (in a round about way) and forced the low wage to take pay cuts. Once those in jobs are forced to find other jobs, they will STILL be competing for jobs that the un-experienced and still be better than them, albeit at a lower level.

I do not believe any of this is news to you or any of the Tory vermin that stalk this board. I genuinely do not think you are that thick. You know perfectly well this little better than a race to the bottom of the wages of the people you hate, the poor.

So why dress it up? You despise these people and I bet they despise you and the shitty Party you vote for, so why pretend otherwise?

The principal is that the amount of money spent on tax credits is distributed equally amongst all taxpayers – not rocket science!

Yes, but tax credits are supposed to be about helping the low paid, a principal you bastards find repugnant, admittedly, but none the less. You are supposed to be keeping the facade up.

You have fucked up and let the cat out of the bag. This is not about helping the working poor, it is about cutting income tax. Nothing wrong in that argument, BTW, I wish you cunts and the Lib Dems would be more honest instead of dressing it up as some kind of help to the poor.

@36 – Because there is still only one job. And that job will be filled at £6/hour. Filling it at £4/hour just means the state ends up picking up the slack!

We DO agree that the tax code needs to be radically simplified. Heck, would anyone like to disagree there?

Hurrah!

“No, because once you scrap the minimum wage, then the more qualified candidates will STILL need to compete for the same types of jobs, because there are still a limited number of jobs open to them. You haven’t magically increased the number of jobs; ”

The lump of labour fallacy seen in the wild! I win the internets!

Lordy be, demand curves slope downwards. Lower the price of something and people will demand more of it. Or didn’t you do Economics GCSE?

Tim W @ 39

The lump of labour fallacy seen in the wild! I win the internets!

This is the point when I ask you what jobs are in not being done because the price of labour is too high. This is the point we always get to when you list the industries that have closed down because of the minimum wage…

…or would do if you ever named these industries.

Leon Wolfson @ 35

That *could* potentially be replaced with raising the personal allowance of parents, it’s working tax credit which is tricker.

Tax credits are supposed to be for the ‘low paid’, not generally for the whole working population. Raising the tax threshold is fairly a inefficient way of distributing money, unless to do serious tinkering with tax codes. It is far cheaper to take income tax from everybody and then top the low paid, than to set individual tax codes according to the number of children and gross income. As it has been pointed out there are circumstances where people actually get more in tax credits than they pay tax, so I suppose you would need to design that into a system, via negative income tax too.

@41 – Again, you’re mixing up working tax credits and children’s tax credits, which 90% of parents are eligable for…at that stage, it’s cheaper to make it universal and do away with the burocracy!

@39 – Ah yes, the party political line. Never mind the people borrowing for basic expenses, if things are cheaper they’ll keep right on spending! … Sigh.