Brexit will give a huge boost to the British workforce
FOR 20 years, UK companies have got used to hiring foreign workers. In 1997 the number of migrant workers was 928,000; in 2018 it was 3.54 million. All thanks to New Labour’s open door drive towards a low wage economy.
But now with Brexit we have a golden opportunity to get British people working again and the Government’s new apprenticeship scheme could well be the answer – and not just for youngsters either as many older people are applying for apprenticeships too.
Again and again, British industry leaders complain they can’t find the right skilled workers for job vacancies across the UK. And yet we have record numbers of young Britons going to university and racking up £50,000-plus debts.
The problem is that many of these university courses are time-wasting indulgences and do not properly prepare young people for the world of employment. Faced with the choice of an inexperienced 21-year-old Brit who lacks interpersonal skills and an enthusiastic Eastern European who skipped college to earn money straight after school, it’s not surprising who gets the job.
The snobbery associated with vocational training must be ditched. Taking up an apprenticeship gives young people the practical tools to get working as soon as possible and not taking on unsustainable debts. The only winners in the current higher education scenario are the greedy universities who are adding more and more pointless courses to cash in on the student money mountain – and the developers of student accommodation.
THERESA May’s Government declared it wanted to see three million apprenticeships by 2020 and insisted that public sector bodies led the way with just over two per cent of their workforce employed under the scheme. For the private sector a levy has been introduced to cover the costs of this on-thejob training. Apprentices are paid the national minimum wage, though some employers offer considerably more.
Earlier this year figures showed a disappointing takeup for these new apprenticeships but this has been ascribed to managers taking time to get