A Level results

tim_wand

99 % of all 2013 Cohort A level students have achieved a pass grade in at least one subject, with over 60% Achieving Grade A-C in three subjects.

Well done.

So how come we have mass youth unemployment?

Still off to Uni with the lot of you to run up an average debt of £19k.

I hope some of these young achievers at least consider apprenticeships and vocational training.

Need someone to pay my bloody pension if I ever get to retire.

Wooliferkins

Uni keeps them off the employment stats for three years then, in the immortal words of Bill Cosby, "All the dropouts had taken the jobs"

markhewitt1978

Wooliferkins wrote:

Uni keeps them off the employment stats for three years then, in the immortal words of Bill Cosby, "All the dropouts had taken the jobs"

Yes, this is the reason University applications are at record levels. What's the point in leaving school to get a job if there is none?

chrisaonabike

People with A-levels will have aspirations. So they wont be up for the crap jobs - we have Bulgarians* for those.

So a lot of them will go off to uni with no idea what the world of work is actually like, and imagine that the bit of paper at the end entitles them to something other than a huge great feckoff debt.

Of the ones whose subject is relevant, or at least teaches them relevant skills, the ones with a good attitude, that prepare their CV properly (ie, actually do things during their period at uni that makes them stand out from the crowd and make them attractive to employers), will mostly not be among the unemployed.

To my mind, the question isn't so much "how come we have mass youth unemployment", it's "how come we have so little mass youth unemployment".

____
* that's just a generic term for EU citizens perfectly reasonably availing themselves of their right to live and work in a country other than their own where pay is typically a lot higher than in their home country. I have nothing against Bulgarians, although I couldn't eat a whole one.

markhewitt1978

I just think how lucky I was to get through university and not only pay nothing but get £1,440 a year from the government for doing so! Even then the money paid had been slashed from previous years.

the playing mantis

university is a waste of time for the majority of people in terms of there careers imo, and only good for drinking and shagging, and putting off real life for another 3/4 years in most cases. There are too many waste of time courses.

university should get back to being what it is supposed to be; further educating the brightest (regardless of financial background/privelege) so that those who are intelligent enough to benefit from the supposed advanced learning can appreciate it and use it to tell the rest of us what to do, and boozing and shagging.

i went to a top london uni. did i have a fun time, certainly, has it benefitted my career? not one bit. i would probably have been better off going straight into work (or attempting to). my degree is irrelevant to what i do and the same can be said for the majority of my friends, work colleagues and acquantences too.

the playing mantis

i should also add, or doing a vocational course to the last bit, as that would be a better option for most than waste of time at uni.

tiredofwhiners

tim wand wrote:

So how come we have mass youth unemployment?

Because degrees in Meeja studies, English literature and Peace Studies aren't enough to get you a job otehr than flipping burgers.

tim wand wrote:

Still off to Uni with the lot of you to run up an average debt of £19k.

The £19k is trivial as thats what they pay. The total figure is probably closer to £100k per student which the taxpayer contributes, which is why the argument should not be about student fees and more about having less places.

We have mass unemployment because instead of Labour spending money on building and supporting industry (the bit that generates wealth) they spent it on creating jobs in the public sector (which have to be paid for by jobs which never got created), funded by debt.

No jobs because the money was spent on non-wealth creators - like Greece but not so much a massive scale fortunately.

thistle_

the playing mantis wrote:

There are too many waste of time courses.

There was a lad on Radio 1 yesterday complaining that he'd spent 3 years doing a photography degree, quit his job working in a shop because it was below him and the job centre wouldn't offer him anything relevant to his degree.

I'm not sure what sort of job he's expecting the job centre to find him :roll:

Perhaps degrees should contain more career advice? All the photographers I know set up their own business as a sideline while they were working elsewhere.

the playing mantis

yes i saw this on the news i think, some dick with a photograph degree (nothing agianst photgraphs), but he was turning jobs down saying they were beneath him. job snobbery is rampant im afraid

lucan2

And A levels are soooo easy these days.

bernithebiker

the playing mantis wrote:

university is a waste of time for the majority of people in terms of there careers imo, and only good for drinking and shagging, and putting off real life for another 3/4 years in most cases. There are too many waste of time courses.

university should get back to being what it is supposed to be; further educating the brightest (regardless of financial background/privelege) so that those who are intelligent enough to benefit from the supposed advanced learning can appreciate it and use it to tell the rest of us what to do, and boozing and shagging.

i went to a top london uni. did i have a fun time, certainly, has it benefitted my career? not one bit. i would probably have been better off going straight into work (or attempting to). my degree is irrelevant to what i do and the same can be said for the majority of my friends, work colleagues and acquantences too.

Big + 1 here. I did mech. eng at King's College London, and it was a blast (lots of boozing and shagging) but that was 20 years ago.

Nowadays, things have changed and I would hesitate to recommend uni for my kids or friends. So many students are doing it now that the degree status has been diluted, and many would be far better off just getting into a company and start getting some valuable experience and salary.

Also, I never used one bit of my mech.eng degree in any of my subsequent jobs....

plowmar

" tiredofwhiners wrote
We have mass unemployment because instead of Labour spending money on building and supporting industry (the bit that generates wealth) they spent it on creating jobs in the public sector (which have to be paid for by jobs which never got created), funded by debt.

I hope you didn't get an Economics degree.

The main reason that we are in such a pile is that the 'wealth creators' didn't.
The Banks invested in over priced bonds from america containg high percentages of bad debt giving a worldwide collapse.
Builders sat on building plots until they could get even higher profits.
Insurance companies missold policies.
The majority of old time wealth producers were either closed down or sold off by a certain Mrs. T - and yes some stream lining was necessary.

So now a days there are very few reasonably paid jobs and those that there are lead to sometimes hundreds of applicants.
To state the obvious there are too many people chasing too few jobs, thats why there is high youth unemployment.

Phew rant over. Back to OP

Mr A Blair is the main architect of high fees as he had a 'vision' of 50% of school leavers going for degrees although even now there are not the degree requiring jobs available. Why nurses now need degrees is beyond me and I am sure that this need has an impact on the lack of care in the NHS - too posh to wipe syndrome.

There are many other instances in other professions, photography, media etc. if you are good at something just get on and do it - build a business employ people.

tiredofwhiners

plowmar wrote:

I hope you didn't get an Economics degree.

Quite right - I got one that creates wealth rather than makes up sh*t which always turn out to be wrong

plowmar wrote:

The main reason that we are in such a pile is that the 'wealth creators' didn't.
The Banks invested in over priced bonds from america containg high percentages of bad debt giving a worldwide collapse.
Builders sat on building plots until they could get even higher profits.
Insurance companies missold policies.
The majority of old time wealth producers were either closed down or sold off by a certain Mrs. T - and yes some stream lining was necessary..

Some great distortions there - must come from reading the Guardian too much. Simple fact - the UK industries in all their forms generated huge amounts of taxation revenue for Labour, and instead of investing it in infrastructure and creating further industries, and paying off debt, the mad one eyed Scotsman doubled up and leveraged even more debt to again, put money onto the cost side of the equation (public sector).

Sure, the banks effectively brought the whole thing down, but if Gordo had invested in the wealth creating economy we would have had a reserve piggy bank to cushion us, and an ongoing tax stream, but instead we had a massive public sector debt and no tax coming in from the banks anymore.

As to these alleged 'old time wealth producers' thats entirely fictitious. There were none at all. What Maggie shut down were the industries whose cost of output exceeded their income i.e. it cost millions a year to produce coal that was worth nothing, it cost millions to produce cars that few wanted to buy and the list goes on.

There are, contrary to belief, plenty of well paid jobs out there but to get them you have to have qualifications and you have to be prepared to relocate. Too many people have neither and in a modern economy, expecting others to pay higher taxes because you want an easier life is unrealistic. My experience of finding people for jobs is that there may be hundreds of applicants but most are barely credible.

plowmar wrote:

To state the obvious there are too many people chasing too few jobs, thats why there is high youth unemployment.

To state the obvious, that not a cause, but an effect. What is the root cause of there being too many people chasing jobs - two reasons;

1. Too many people - you can choose whether to blame immigration, state funded child support or any number of reasons. Jobs in the public sector are not a solution as Greece has found to its cost.

2. Too few jobs - lack of support by Labour for British industry for 15 years, and an expectation that people with with little or no qualifications will find a decent job.

plowmar wrote:

if you are good at something just get on and do it - build a business employ people.

Totally agree, but then don't be surprised when you are drowning in government bureaucracy and your employees feel they own the company despite having done nothing to create it, and that you should run the company for their benefit ! Been there done that and then moved overseas so I didnt have to put up with all that sh*t anymore.

PS We have over 300 well paid (and I really mean well paid) engineering vacancies in our company, with high salaries, decent pension etc and can we find anyone who is even close ? No, so we go overseas as the Brits expect to be home each night for tea at 4.30pm.

tim_wand

No, so we go overseas as the Brits expect to be home each night for tea at 4.30pm.

Really, I ve never had a job were I finished at 16.30 or expected or wanted one. More like shifts/ Anti social hours and Weekend working.

I ve just come back from Sicily , where everything closes down between 1300-1500 so they can have a Kip and it was the same in Spain and Greece.

The only time I ve not worked at least 60 hours in a week is when EUROPEAN WORKING TIME DIRECTIVES have stopped me and theres been no opt out.

In general I agree that the UK education system needs a massive shake up , to focus on making school leavers more employable, as apposed to league tabling exam results to supposedly show how successful a school has been.

I d rather see figures showing how many of their leavers are in employment 5 years after leaving.

You say the Jobs available at your engineering company are "Well paid"; I guess you know better than me, but my experience in Industry mostly sees companies out sourcing to overseas production or employees to cut costs.

On a side note if you genuinely do have some good engineering vacancies can you name the firm, as a good friend has just Graduated Sheffield Hallam with a first in Engineering (he did his final dissertation in thermal dynamic properties of concrete. or something like that) got a first, and is looking for employment.

southdownswolf

A levels and degrees are only useful because not many people know what job they REALLY want to do until they are about 30. If you know what you want to do, then go work in that industry and get experience. I think it used to be called apprenticeship....

Companies want to make as much money as possible, so investment has gone abroad to cheaper eastern European countries or the Far East, leaving a lack of investment in the UK and less jobs. They bemoan the fact that they can not manufacture etc in the UK due to high costs.

Unemployed people in the UK want to earn as much money, so will not take jobs that offer too little in wages. They bemoan the fact that the right job/money is not available.

People working in the UK pay for the unemployed. They bemoan the fact that their taxes are wasted on useless people that couldn't give a ****.

Make people earn their dole money by cleaning the streets etc, just divide their dole money by the minimum wage to find out how many hours they need to do. If they don't do their hours, they don't get their money. Pay them in food/clothing vouchers etc. Stop the lazy ****ers from smoking and drinking, therefore cutting down the costs to the NHS.
As for half the people on disability benefit... If they lost 10 stone out of the 20 they weigh, then they wouldn't have a bad back....

Jez mon

There are plenty of graduate engineering vacancies, in my graduating class of 30ish (Masters degrees) I know of only one person who was still looking for a job at the time of their final exam, the rest all either had jobs or phds lined up. Friends who graduated with bachelors degrees didn't have any problems finding jobs either.

Admittedly, I had to apply to about 18 places, before getting a job offer, but I was still able to be fairly picky and only applied to companies I genuinely wanted to work for, and locations I wanted to live...

tiredofwhiners

Jez mon wrote:

There are plenty of graduate engineering vacancies,

Sage comment - people with degrees which are of practical use find jobs which pay well.

People with less than useful degrees will find it harder.

PS The aerospace sector is always short of engineers. Contrary to the dogma of the Guardian readership, there are tns of thousands of well paying jobs in big companies in the Uk in this sector and they are always short of staff. Its when the shortages become a big problem that companies look to move overseas but if they keep filling the jobs they won;t go overseas. The reason lots of companies move to China is NOT always because its cheap but because China can supply a few thousand engineers straight away who are willing and able.

As opposed to the UK where history, art and economics graduates still abound.

mamba80

southdownswolf wrote:

A levels and degrees are only useful because not many people know what job they REALLY want to do until they are about 30. If you know what you want to do, then go work in that industry and get experience. I think it used to be called apprenticeship....

Companies want to make as much money as possible, so investment has gone abroad to cheaper eastern European countries or the Far East, leaving a lack of investment in the UK and less jobs. They bemoan the fact that they can not manufacture etc in the UK due to high costs.

Unemployed people in the UK want to earn as much money, so will not take jobs that offer too little in wages. They bemoan the fact that the right job/money is not available.

People working in the UK pay for the unemployed. They bemoan the fact that their taxes are wasted on useless people that couldn't give a ****.

Make people earn their dole money by cleaning the streets etc, just divide their dole money by the minimum wage to find out how many hours they need to do. If they don't do their hours, they don't get their money. Pay them in food/clothing vouchers etc. Stop the lazy ****ers from smoking and drinking, therefore cutting down the costs to the NHS.
As for half the people on disability benefit... If they lost 10 stone out of the 20 they weigh, then they wouldn't have a bad back....

As much as it hates me to say... your dead right, we are soft and if there are genuinely no jobs, then how come the tourist industry down here is full of east europeans working their butts off and moving up the chain of command?
stayed at Burgh Island for a birthday treat, mega expensive, fantastic service... and almost everyone working there was from abroad and on decent money too.
British youths are in the main, lazy, lack any sort of initiative, have no idea about manual work, expect instant high wages and would prefer to free load off parents/state than get a low paid job.

their high exam results only re enforce the notion that some else owes them a living.

ballysmate

A school culture where no-one is allowed to be told that they have failed is not preparing kids for the real world. An exam culture where everyone seems to get pass is flawed.
Failure is part of life, we all do it to varying degrees throughout our lives. There is nothing wrong with saying to a kid, you tried your best, but unfortunately you failed. This gives the kid a reality check and also teaches one of life's lessons.