UK must become ‘less dependent’ on foreign workers by training more British apprentices, minister warns LBC
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/british-apprentices-phillipson-reliant-foreign-workers/
Posted by tylerthe-theatre
UK must become ‘less dependent’ on foreign workers by training more British apprentices, minister warns LBC
https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/british-apprentices-phillipson-reliant-foreign-workers/
Posted by tylerthe-theatre
45 Comments
> UK must become ‘less dependent’ on foreign workers by training more British apprentices, minister warns LBC
You hear that LBC, get to work.
But are we going to pay them adequately? You can’t expect people to want to be apprentices for the horrendous pay they get.
They should have been doing this 20years ago! They’ve been promising this for decades too. Stop talking and get on with it!
I’d do an apprenticeship if I could afford it and if they’d hire a 28 year old, but currently I earn 30k a year and dropping to £6.40 an hour is not reasonable or realistic.
The problem is the salary and how many hours they work on many professions taken by foreign workers.
Home care, for example. You might work extremely long hours, have little to no days off, and spend a long time on the road, but still get paid minimum wage. Foreign workers (who, by the way come from the countries the Tories were willing to have a more “easier” approach with regarding immigration after Brexit –aka the Commonwealth–) agree to that because the home care visa is one of the easiest “ways in” to the UK for them (and in the past for their dependents, too!).
You can train people all that you want, but by the end of the day, said people will choose someone who offers them good conditions and a decent pay, and that might not be in the UK.
Well fucking DUH
How about we sponsor people to become nurses? We pay for the training and schooling, and they are tied in to 10 years working for the NHS, and we reduce how much they owe by 10% each year, they can buy themselves out if they want, but after 10 years, its all clear.
Also, let’s stop the brain drain of public services by paying NHS/Council/Civil Servants a decent wage, I see the MP’s are getting another pay rise.
I don’t know about anyone else, but where there is a serious accident, I want Firemen, Nurses and Doctors dealing with it, not MP’s, so please explain why they are worth so much and deliver so little?
[Sounds way too Marxist-Leninist for the Labour Party.](https://www.cpbml.org.uk/news/immigration-class-and-nation)
Better pay, work conditions and four day weeks and I imagine people would feel better doing any job.
However who wants to slave away five days a week, coming home falling asleep on the sofa when you come home, spend Saturday exhausted and Sunday anxious. All for someone to make like a bandit off you, even worse if they badly manage the business meaning all that suffering was for nothing.
a lot of the young men I know straight up refuse to leave the house due to anxiety, that’s probably a big part of the issue with the economy
We tried apprenticeships before (about 10-12 years ago?), and a lot of employers used it as cheap labour, with no actual job at the end of it. There have to be protections built in.
Honestly I’m willing to train people but I found when I was hiring people that most 20-30 year olds would struggle with basic things like coming on time. We paid well as for the type of job it was.
I did an apprenticeship – the initial training was good but a lot of companies take the piss with it.
I work in the finance sector and traditionally a lot of our talent would come from the likes of the Big 4 who would do their 3yr training contract and leave practice for usually a considerable payrise.
Over the last few years the Big 4 in particular have greatly increased their visa sponsorship program.
Now we have an issue across the industry where the traditional Big 4 leaver talent pool has shrunk, and we are left with skilled employees who are tied to a visa program and unable to flexibly leave the Big 4.
People think apprenticeships just affects low skilled industries but it is across the board.
We’ve got over half a million apprentices between August and October 2024 (https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships).
That is a significant portion of that age group, especially as many more stay in formal education.
Unfortunately 1 in 4 apprentices ‘achieve’, so the drop-out rate seems very high. Could be deceiving though, of two family members I know that took part in apprenticeships, neither ‘achieved’ the accreditation but for both it was because they were recruited to full posts by the company where they worked.
Some sectors use apprenticeships as a way to screen candidates for suitability and that is fine. As a mechanism I don’t think we need more legislative pressure. Something Labour seems to have understood by reducing the reporting responsibilities.
Yeah but that takes time and British employers are incredibly short-termist in their viewpoints so will just keep hiring foreign labour unless you force them. And British politicians are equally as short-termist so probably won’t want to rock the boat too much.
Why would they do that when they can ask for 3-5 years of experience for entry-level pay and still get people applying? Training is not something companies want to do anymore and at the moment there aren’t enough jobs to go round so no company is going to want to train when they have a large pool of experienced applicants to choose from.
The problem is (the world over) that foreign ‘immigrant’ workers are usually underpaid. And their life in that new country, even doing a crappy job, is often better than conditions in their home country. So they usually do a lot of the less desirable/more manual jobs that the ‘locals’ don’t usually want to do.
Tons of people in the UK live off benefits as they get paid better off that than doing less desirable jobs. So why would they do that when they can sit around in their council house doing nothing?
To be less dependent on foreign workers you’ll have to make those jobs much more desirable, meaning increasing wages probably higher than necessary. And that’s unlikely to happen.
Nobody believes them. They’ve been hooked on low skilled migration for last 25 years.
If you work for a big company, they will be paying an apprenticeship levy. This can be used to fund training for existing staff without the need to pay apprenticeship wages. If you work for a large company, ask for training and mention the levy, they will be charged it, so they may as well use it.
I started my training at 33, 4 years later I finished and haven’t looked back.
This nonsense again? We have an old population. The number of people in their 40s and 50s (so likely to retire in next two decades) far outweighs those under 20 (so those who will enter the workforce in the same period).
So the next two decades will either see a contraction in the economy, an increase in adult economic migrants or a massive reduction in state expenditure to take care of those who retire in the next two decades.
The government can’t force people to have unprotected sex. No political party is going to publicly try and reduce the state pension or later life care provisions (albeit they will in stealth/via fiscal drag).
So the alternative is to allow economic migrants of a working age in.
We’re running out of money and working age people to keep adding to the tax collections. Having an unemployment rate of 0% isn’t going to fix this.
This sounds like a pre-defence for the imminent collapse of many universities.
I don’t know what it’s like in the rest of the country, but in the northeast, the competition for apprenticeships is rife. They’re gold dust and really hard to get. Real apprenticeships I’m talking about thoigh, not the daft retail ones
I did a level 6 apprenticeship and really recommend it to any young person figuring out a career path.
During the 5yr apprenticeship, I worked full time, studied a bachelor degree and become a Chartered Surveyor. I paid nothing towards my degree and had solid 5yrs experience all on my CV.
So they’ve reduced the English and maths requirements for those apprenticeships which are normally paying below minimum wage at least for a few years. No chance companies won’t exploit that to hire more immigrants with poor English skills and a legal reason to pay less than the minimum wage…
You don’t need apprentices, what you need is a change of attitude from the employers who demand to have a full work experience from 20 yo entering the workforce.
Why train them when we can send manufacturing jobs abroad and outsource most of the good paying jobs as well.
I’m very lucky to be on an apprenticeship that pays nicely with salary increases over my training period. I said no to a lot prior to applying to this one, most of which were between £12k and £16k. That wouldn’t cover my rent, bills and necessities and I’d be doing the same work as a regular employee.
Pay apprentices a proper wage and you’d see an enormous rise in trained professionals.
Germany has been doing that for decades and until now they still have a workforce shortage today.
Oh, and by the way, we have cut all funding to apprenticeships… (Maybe Labour will be better, maybe)
Well bloody well do it then and train apprentices instead of demanding an apprentice have five years experience prior.
We should have an employer tax on hiring overseas workers. That way employers can still access overseas talent if they are desperate, but will otherwise be forced to actually train people up like they did before migrant workers were an option.
The reason foreign labour was utilised so much was because of cheap labour it’s been happening since the Windrush era.
It’s down to companies and the government to pay people a fair wage immigrants or not to make us less reliant of foreign labour. If it wasn’t for foreign labour, we who have extreme shortages in care workers and nurses as lots of British born workers are put off due to the working conditions/ low wages.
What is LBC going to do about it? shouldn’t LBC be warning the government about the problem?
Well, how about encouraging people to go into understaffed fields by giving them better pay and conditions?
“We tried everything except help people live a stable life in capitalism” energy.
The problem is the UK has a lot of people in 20s, 30s and 40s looking to retrain can’t live on an apprentices wages.
Limit immigration and wages will rise – its simple supply and demand – funny how the BBC will write this in an article about Canada’s immigration caps – but never about the UK, all we hear is – racis, right wing etc!
People need their ideology – your need for better wages should outweigh your opinions on immigration!
It’s one thing I’ve seen change in job postings, no companies seem to want to train staff up for anything
What? British people must work and pay taxes to afford the fabulously expensive welfare state?
I think there’s gotta be some merit in a lifelong re-training option for all full citizens of the UK. So if you lose your job or are struggling to make enough money from your current one to survive you can get some kind of subsidy for part time study. I think many people only realise later in life what their true calling is (or isn’t).
Once again: target the businesses and corporations that are the main perpetrators of this and INVEST in this country and the people: skilling up, adult education, apprenticeships etc.
The problem we’ve long had is those pushing hardest on cutting off immigration have been the ones that embraced austerity and cheer on the underfunding of every aspect of British society designed to help lift people up then are confused why many don’t wants to start families and we have massive skill shortages.
Nothing new,been like this since 70s,would you believe it,it cost money to train/educate people.and money. Is way more important than wot skill could help you..every country is looking for the cheapest labour…
UK policy in the last few decades in a nutshell:
1. “We hate foreigners! British jobs for British workers!”
2. Systematically underfund education. Pay apprentices virtually nothing. Cancel NHS student bursaries.
3. Remark how curious it is that young people in the UK lack the skills needed for the modern work place.
4. Attract overseas workers to the UK to prop up several sectors of the labour market.
5. “We hate foreigners! British jobs for British workers!”
Either adequately fund education and training and invest in the development of our young people, or get used to waiting longer and longer to see your Indian doctor or Polish plumber.
Sounds good.
… But how do we make it happen? It’s been suggested for about 20 fucking years
Gordon Brown said this in 2007. 18 years ago. And here we are again, with nothing having changed
It should be mandatory for companies to offer apprenticeships.
Ongoing professional training and development is also a massive hole in British working culture. It is seen as something that makes employees more likely to leave. So companies just skip it. Why should they train you? You will expect more money or go work for someone else who will pay you more! Plus all that time out of work being “unproductive” doing “useless” training… bad for output.
I’d like to see the DWP or some other relevant government department laying down a smackdown on British companies. Enforcing training schemes. Enforcing acceptance of unions. Enforcing apprenticeship schemes and work experience schemes with local schools.