They already are a source of cheap labour but depending on the industry, employers want experience, training inexperienced labour costs money.
People in senior positions aren't retiring at 55 as they used to, instead waiting until 65 (especially without the great pensions of yesteryear), this means people in middle positions are staying in those places until 55, rather than 45. People in junior positions are staying in those positions until age 45, not 35, and people in entry positions are staying in place until 35 rather than 25, and there's 3 times as many people after those entry level positions, so everyone ends up working in costa until their 30s, meaning no settling down until they're in their 40s, by which case they then need expensive IVF. For entry level jobs in the past it was 15-25, not 25-35, and the coffee making was embedded in a company where there was a chance to pick up at least something useful.
Ten to twelve years ago when I was job-hunting, with an MSc but no work experience, I got into this cycle: 1) Apply for job for which you have qualifications, to be told you don't have the experience they need. 2) Apply for job requiring fewer qualifications and lower experience, to be told you're overqualified and they think you'll scram at the first opportunity. 3) Search in vain for jobs at the right qualification level but requiring no/little experience in the field. Find none, and return to step 1. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam. I suspect it's even worse these days...
I believe one of many errors the Blair government did was to increase the graduate intake to around 50%. It is no point having an educated workforce with a degree when there are not enough jobs to meet their qualifications. It was just a method to keep the unemployment youth figures down. It massively increased the state bill for higher education hence the introduction of tuition fees. Getting a degree used to be free because hardly anyone took that route, there was no need for a degree to get a job. Now you probably need one to work in Tesco on the till.
I was lucky enough to get on a 3 year post-grad training course at my current employer. 200 people applied for every space though, not sure what happened to those that didn't get the job, I assume they went somewhere. I recently tried to employ 2 people. Very few applied (got about 9 cvs in), only 3 made the interview stage, and only 1 was good enough for a junior position. My team isn't a traditional team though, we don't fit into traditional single skill areas, you need a broad understanding -- not a broad knowledge, knowledge can be gained. It's the ability to see what the business problem is, and in our area that's not "making a website" or "running a network" or "doing a diagram", it's understanding the problem, and using appropriate tools (which include making websites, designing networks, and drawing schematics), which in my case is to get video and audio signals from point A to point B. The person we employed happened to be someone internal that we'd already worked with while she was doing a masters of some sort, but from the candidates I've seen it's hard to find entry or junior level people who are able to see the whole problem, grasp what is trying to be solved, and then suggest the right tools for the job. They start off with the tools and try to fit them into the situation. Perhaps my team is just an unusual area, but I'm not interested in specific experience with specific technologies which often vanish in a year or so, especially in the 'web' area. Some experience in problem solving, in business analysis, in flexibility, in unique practical solutions is good, but that could be in any field. "Our lighting panel broke at our local theatre so I did this, this and this and got us through to the end of the show" = brilliant. "I made this cool looking widget written in go which tied into the fnar.js which makes an emoji pop up when you have a problem in your continuous integration system" = so?
You're right to a large extent, but university isn't just about teaching specific skills, it's about expanding the range and outlook of people. There should be an extra cost for going to a university within 60 miles of your high school. Either way though, university is free if you stay there forever. If you graduate and earn under £20k, you don't repay anything. Even if you earn £50k (top 90% of earners), you're only paying £2600 a year. You are basically (assuming 2 children at the top end) paying the following marginal income tax/ni rates £0-8k: 0% £8k-11k: 12% (NI) £11k-21k: 32% (12% NI 20% tax) £21k-45k: 41% (12% NI 20% tax 9% loan) £45k-£50k: 51% (2% NI 40% tax 9% loan) £50k-£60k: 70% (2% NI 40% tax 9% loan 19% child tax) £60k-£100k: 51% (2% NI 40% tax 9% loan) If you're earning at this level you've probably paid it off the loan £100k-£150k: 42% (2% NI 40% tax) The problem is a lot of people at the end of their teens just want to get out and start doing something practical - either to earn money, or to be satisfied with something other than a mark on a piece of paper. Later in life people are keen on learning something for learning's sake. In some ways, funding university for over 50s would be a far better thing to do - encouraging early retirement. May also solve the problem we have with an embittered cynical nostalgic elderly generation. P.S. this talking about student loans got me to finally ring back the company - I paid mine off about 10 years ago, but had a call from them last month. Apparently I'd overpaid by £500, awesome
^Seems a fair system to me, why does Corbyn want to ban tuition fees, you only pay when you can afford to pay. I get the impression people on the Left expect the state to do everything for its citizens, including helping them to the loo. P.S Hope you get interest from them as well
You don't need a degree to come across those scenarios even leaving college with a decent qualification you can get that.
Yes but Scotland had it's independence vote, they decided to remain. So what's the difference between giving Scotland a second Indpendence vote and giving those who voted to remain a second Brexit vote? Sometimes in a democracy the vote doesn't go your way, and lets suppose Scotland had another Independence vote and they voted to stay in the union, the SNP would be demanding a third, then a fourth and so on until they got a leave vote. And just how would the SNP pay for everything the public spending per head is higher in Scotland than the UK average. Well I guess there is always that ever popular vote winner Tax rises. http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN04033 But I see Corbyn is now saying the system is rigged. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39649119 So if Labour does win, is he contending that they won it unfairly or is it a case of the system is only rigged when we lose. Must have been rigged when Labour won in 1997, 2001, 2005. Perhaps they took lessons.
I think the point that Scotland is making lately is that during their independence referendum, the tone from London was that the reason they should stay was that if they left they'd risk departing the EU Common Market. Now London is essentially forcing exactly that on Scotland.
There are two issues 1) There's no guarentee it will remain at 9% above 21k 2) It's a useful thing to harp on about when they think the lib dems are a threat. Labour if you remember were the ones who introduced tuition fees in the first place! As for fair -- I'm not convinced about the 70% marginal rate for train drivers, compared with the 42% marginal rate for CEOs (ok it goes up towards 50% once you're up over the £150k range).
Typical hipocritical Labour. Are they guaranteeing voting reform yet? Perhaps keep FPTP, but change the value of each MP's vote so that they are in proportion to the number of people voting for their party. SNP lose massively (each individual MP would have about 27 votes), but UKIP would have had 4500 votes, green about 1500 votes. The only post-war government who's members and backbenchers were elected by >50% of the country was the 2010-2015 coalition government.
Labour are just lucky that the new Boundaries haven't come into effect. Which means each constituency has roughly the same number of registered voters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Periodic_Review_of_Westminster_constituencies Of course the prior one took place whilst Labour was in office. Which was in efffect at the 2010/15 elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Periodic_Review_of_Westminster_constituencies
Independant Scotland would have a fight on its hand to join the EU. They don't like the idea of nation states splitting up, especially Spain, might set a nasty precedent in their own back yard. However if Scotland was an economic powerhouse like Germany then anything is possible, after all money talks.
Now don't bring reason into the debate. The SNP would likely say that the EU would welcome Scotland with open arms, or try and get an indpendence vote before Brexit takes effect and say well we never actually voted to leave. As that would be untested waters for the EU could a country which has broken off from an EU member claim automatic membership if that region had voted to join in a previous referedum as part of the country or poliical entity it was previously.
Yes, it did. Unless you like people on minimum wages paying taxes, gay people being unable to marry, private wheelclampers extorting people, coal power stations, children at school unable to afford lunch, id cards, home information packs, having a dns database of innocent people, have a snoopers charter allowing the local council to spy on your internet use, complex pensions, etc. etc.
It's an interesting point. Czechoslovakia broke up before joining the EU. If Scotland broke off, the legal successor country would presumably be England/Wales/Northern Ireland. But what if Scotland and London (ScotLond) broke off as a single country? What if it was Scotland, NI, Wales, London and the south east? When does Triger's broom become a new broom?