agoreira

Agree, and in those long begotten days most of those apprentices had a job waiting for them to step into, that's not the case nowadays. I'm 100% in favour of good engineering/mechanical apprenticeships, but it can prove a bit futile if at the end of 4-5 years study there are no jobs for them. In a refinery near me there have always been apprentices (albeit in reduced numbers) but when they have done their time, most have been glad to take any other jobs within the refinery because of a lack of vacancies for them in their chosen profession. Unfortunately we don't produce a great deal nowadays which involves getting your hands dirty, or the need for an apprenticeship. I hope it will change and we get back into producing things again, but I'm not holding my breath. It's a sad fact of life, it's cheaper for us to pay some eastern sweatshops to produce our goods for us.

jojojojojo

Well its all crazy really. We priced ourselves out of the market cos manufacturers wanted to keep costs down. The Chinese havent - yet, but someday soon the "workers" are gonna look up and realise that their cheap labour is lining the pockets of their bosses and maybe do what the west did a few decades ago and demand higher pay?????? However, then that will put the prices of goods up and who will then be able to afford them??

Jo xxx

Saxy

That's absolutely right, the Brits have become a 'Nation of Shopkeepers'. Napoleon must be laughing his socks off!!!!!!!

Domino

The kids of today are not the servile lot we or our fathers were. They couldn't stick a 3year plus apprenticeship.

They want to be well paid from day 1, they don't want to listen more than once to an instruction - even when they have done it wrong and they don't take any notes.
They want to be left to do the job after a week, not caring that it isn't "quite" right, almost or there abouts is ok.
Always looking for a short cut to everything.
When they cock it up they don't bother telling anyone just leave it.
They want to have plenty of time to text and\or fone mates all day, coffee breaks are to be doubled, ciggy breaks whenever mildly bored - calling mates away from other departments to join them.
Punctuality for start times guidelines only but leaving early is ok. the times for lunch breaks are also guides only, getting back 20mins late is fine, the person being relieved will wait for them.
Never around when colleagues need a helping hand, females hide behind their femininity as a reason for not doing things.
Never have respect for colleagues who have years of experience in doing the job

Many managers seem to condone it and daren't do anything about it.
Any managers who do are reported to their manager\director for being overbearing and having a personal vendetta against the individual.

Brings back the memories for me like a whiff from the rubbish bin.

bobd22

Not sure on that one I started as an apprentice in 1969 and mine was a 5 year apprenticeship , there were shorter apprenticeships i.e. with the NCB but they were only ones I knew off. Mind I didn't complete mine and left at 18 to join up which turned out a good choice as industry in Yorkshire went into terminal decline, at least I have had full employment up to now, mind Forces is a unique apprenticeship in many ways. Most of so called modern apprenticeships are actually for unskilled jobs. Look at the carry on with Bombadier in Derby with the train carry on if our government can't employ skilled British workers what hope is there or point in learning a trade. Yet again UK blindly follows EEC rules and gets stuffed while the German company gets the contract, would it happen the other way not a hope. As for University's when i was a growing up it was the exception rather than the norm to go to University and it was the brightest of bright kids that did and they took real degrees not like nowadays. I feel and don't want to upset anyone but a lot of it is because parents now like to say their offspring are at uni or have a degree fact that what they study will not get them a job seems irrelivant, kids expect to go to uni and lead the party life (not all but many). Universities are just business's now making vast amounts off money look at the new charges and the fact that many Universities that were once Technical Colleges are trying to charge top whack. Something has to and needs to change in the UK and quickly or it will sink without trace. I fear that the country has been damaged beyond repair by the last Government, this one although trying is not coming up with the goods. They rely on a weak pound which makes imports dearer we have to import as we don't produce enough including food products to sustain demand. To keep the pound weak they keep interest rates down discouraging saving and investment, if they speak of putting them up there is talk of calamity with mortgage none payment. So they are kept down apart from a few industries no one seems to have made the most of the weak pound (over 2 yrs now) so it continues. If something doesn't happen soon they will be starting to run into pre election territory are they going to want rising interest rates then? with people who totally overstretched themselves pre crisis loosing their homes doubt it. What can we do not much if you have been stupid enough to plan for the future or retirement you are going to pay for this mess

Domino

The problem is exactly the same as with Uni degrees.

With technology changing so rapidly it is difficult to plan what a company is going need in 3, 6, 10 years time. So when an apprentice starts learning today the eventual job may be on its way out if not already superceeded by new technology.

when you have several million people to call on for labour at subsistance pay levels you can afford to have people who only do one element of a process before passing it on to someone else who passes it on etc etc.
That way no one actually knows how to actually make a product - except for the person who designed it (but that can't always be guaranteed).
Even QA is based on "if it works box and sell" "if it doesn't work ditch and start again"

Mitzyboy

Back in the nineties I did work for Henry Squire Locks, a British manufacturer .. and they were proud of their history of manufacture and iirc the Union Jack was on their packaging.

They started getting complaints about their can openers, in as much as they were breaking. They got hold of some of the broken items and they were at first baffled. After investigation and looking at the packaging it became clear that they didnt make them. They were being cloned in China and shipped into the UK and sold as Squire products. They were appalled.

Several years later Squires Locks switched their production to China and made many of their UK employees redundant. A British Product?

Domino

I don't think anyone is allowed to put the Union Flag (sri - pedantic) on their products as it may upset those from other countries and serve as a bar to people from other countries buying such products

So how is Aston Martin going to sell in China ??
Will they ramp up production to meet demand or allow deliveries to slip and improve the cache of the product.

Mitzyboy

This, as I said, was in the 90's and it was "allowed" then.

You think people arent in some ways barred from buying british sold products in other countries? I just bought a new bike, and certain brands would not ship to Spain because they were not allowed to sell to anyone here under "special" agreements

Domino

mmmm didn't think I actually said that - but if you have construed it then so could others

essentially, the fluffy bunny brigade in the UK have frightened companies with "the use of the Union Flag is triumphal" and can be seen as a negativity to those who wish to buy the product. They are looking to see a world with no boundaries and a totally homogenous market place and people - until it comes to marrying their daughters.

conversely, buyers in many countries used to look on made in the uk products as being a pedestal product and although more expensive than other products also had a quality cache that they could boast of to their friends, indicating they were wealthy enough to afford British.....

Domino

is that because they have entered into an exclusive agreement with a Spanish (or other) company that all sales must be through that agent ??

is that product sold in Spain under a "labelling" agreement and has someone elses name on it ? ?

There are many reasons, one of which could be the local agent having to cover warranty on a product he hasn't received commision or profit on.

but with the way the EU now says there are no boundaries they may actually be guilty of an offence of some sort or another for restrictive practice. I will leave the someone else to worry about that.

jackytoo

Same with lots of goods, China sells fake Scotch whisky too. Many companies such as Viners moved cutlery manufacture to the East. Happens in Spain too. My friend's Father owned 2 shoe factories in Elche. One made only shoe trimmings. All the machinery was state of the art German and they employed about 100 people plus outworkers. (35 years ago you could see people working on shoes on their doorsteps.) They went bust in the 90's couldn't compete anymore with eastern imports, as did many more shoe manufactores in Elche.

About the same time many textile companies were closing down is Spain for the same reason.

Domino

Elche = Northampton in the 80's and 90's

Mitzyboy

I suspect it's a pricing thing. Nothing to do with labelling

Much the same, or similar, as US computer games not working in UK games machines I guess.

HBG

Where I live, we are saturated with Chinese businesses, but today we visited the latest one, a gigantic store near Quesada that has just opened. Because of some unexpected visitors arriving shortly, we bought a couple of blow-up beds.

Anywhere else they sell for 40 Euros, this latest Chinese hypermarket sells them for 10. I think the actual size of this shop is bigger than the Olympic stadium.