Somerford Mini "Can't get the staff..."

[mab01uk]

[Costafortune]

It's the same everywhere.

My mate works at Sytner BMW locally and they cannot get good mechanics. 80% of the apprentice yoofs are useless wankers and the old geezers (Jon is 50+) are on the verge of retirement......taking all the skills and knowledge with them.

The motor trade as a whole is on the verge of crisis.

[mab01uk]

Its the same in the manufacturing industry I have worked in for 45+ years. I'm a Mechanical Design Engineer, started as an apprentice in the 1970's and am now working past retirement age....but companies keep paying me more to stay as they can't find experienced new recruits and most of the youngsters have degrees but in obscure subjects that are no use to many employers....mainly since Tony Blair encouraged every youngster to go to University and get a degree no matter how useless the subject matter was for getting a job at the end. Now we have too few time served younger engineers or tradesmen.

Even Blair's own son now says the former Prime Minister's pledge to send half of all young people to university is a failure. He said: "When you look at the 50 percent target, the belief was the more people go to university, the more people can access great opportunities, the more we would transition people fairly from full time education to full time employment. It has not worked out that way. Lots of students end up in jobs deemed to be low skilled that would not need a degree in the first place. Euan Blair believes schools should place an equal emphasis on the benefits of apprenticeships as they do on going to universities. He also criticised school league tables for failing to give credence to apprenticeships. What we are saying is there are lots of young people applying to university but a significant number are applying simply because they think it is the thing they are supposed to do and that is the route they have heard about through teachers or read about in the media."

[Polarsilver]

Sorry Can only get worse .. no point in blaming any pandemic or the B word.. the basic issue started donkeys years ago when Company,s & Gov; were not prepared to fund & carry out "proper" Apprenticeships .. example Grandson got a one year Engineering Apprenticeship @ Caterpillar Factory .. first week safety training the next 11 months put On the Line assembling Backhoe Loaders.. next sorry you did not meet our requirements goodbye.. i then look see more adverts for the next intake of cheap labour as 1 yr Cat Apprenticeships.. Cat as do so many other companys just take the Gov; Apprentice/ Trainee cash funding and just use these Youngsters as their cheap Labour.
This week just another example of our future skills base.. Youngster on release from School doing his Work Experience ..spent his time not doing as asked .. he though it much better to scroll through his phone..he knows no better he is failed by the School system.
Just look at how our Schools are failing our young people .. Example this week a Teacher Failed to Show up for their Class.. so the Kids were split up into two other Classes that made 50x Secondary Kids in a Maths Class under the one Teacher ..
However there are many young people who do want to work they just need to be given the chance & not taken on because they are cheap Labour . Pay proper money so they have the ablilty to find somewhere to live & eat .. yes in this old gits Apprentice years i did three jobs to make it & young people today are willing to do the same just give them the chance .

"Just glad i am on the way out & not on the way in "

[hugbilly]

This has been the situation as long as I can remember, and I'm nearly 70 now. Britain has a weird, and disparaging, attitude to trades and being trained for them. It's snobby and highly destructive. Compare the situation with that in Germany where trades are highly valued and respected, apprentices are properly trained (it takes six months for a trainee carpenter there to learn to hang a door properly for example) and people who work with their hands are respected and admired as they rightly should be . . .

[Polarsilver]

Sorry this has wound me up.. Uni Loans .. best i hear Graduates finish with about £40k in Student Loan & on the TV news last week a Junior Doctor said she owed £95k student loan.
How the hell can these Graduates pay off such loans & still have a standard of living & maybe afford to buy a property .. yet another section of the working mass that has problems.

[Nathan1293]

Most students will never repay their “loans”, and ultimately they will be written off when they are much older. The U.K. is not unique in this a lot of Europe has the same style loans.

My father was trained as a mechanic in the 70s. He has felt modern mechanics have been deliberately down skilled for a long time. It’s easy to fit a new part, it’s tricky when the new part the diagnostic said to fit doesn’t solve the problem. That’s not even covering the skills in body work.

[Striped shirt]

So.... Thought I would throw my hat into this discussion.
I've been teaching in Secondary Schools for nearly 22 years, Design and Technology, Engineering and Motor Vehicle Studies in mainstream and special needs.
When I started teaching back in 2001, Design and Technology was the subject that would lead into any vocational or practical career. It was at the time the 4th 'core' subject (Maths, English and Science being the others). Within DT you could choose a specialism to study and they all had separate exams.
Very quickly the education department, at the time, realised they could not find ANYONE to become a teacher of this subject. So... the solution was to eventually water it all down into one subject that eroded any practical skills and was all about design and CAD/CAM, not actual skills.
The old wood work and metal work simply left and a huge skills void was created.
When this was finally realised it was too late. No-one leaving industry will re-train as a teacher because....Well, why would you!
Most schools do understand this, but there is also the league table aspect. Schools are awarded 'points' based on results. Maths/English/Science the most, followed my the Humanities, then PE/Drama/Dance/Music and then the vocational subjects like Engineering, construction, Motor Vehicle, Land Based.
It is simply a difficulty getting teachers that can teach these subjects, schools that won't invest in a subject they cant staff AND the educational system that does not value these skills.
This is of course very simplified, there are many other aspects. One being a lack of teacher training colleges (experienced lecturer's).
I'm still in the classroom teaching SEN kids Motor vehicle, but even I will stop doing it in a few years....

[Pete]

Yep seemed like a good idea years ago when we started shipping all the kids ff n an industrial scale , kids that normally went into trades/ vocation work, off to Universities at great expense to the taxpayer to study an ‘Ology but now we’ve ended up with subsequent generations of young people with useless ‘Ology degrees who don’t know what to do with them and the result is that the trades are starved of manpower. Great news if you work with your hands but not great news if you employ people who work with their hands!

When I was a teenager only the lucky few went off to Uni, now the pendulum’s swung so far the other way we’re buggered for skilled tradespeople!!

[mk1coopers]

I can only echo how hard it is to get skilled HGV (and other) Technicians these days, especially if you are Public Sector, and can’t compete with the base wages being offered in the Private sector.

We offer really well paid apprenticeships, trouble is those that we bring through that are any good tend to leave within a year or two of qualification for the higher paid jobs, understandable when you want to buy a house / do anything else with the current cost of living, currently we have 5 vacancies across our workshops, doesn’t sound a lot, but as the fleet is only growing in size it’s putting excessive pressure on the people that remain, which leads to the vicious circle of more leaving, and more pressure on fewer people.

Practical Apprenticeships are essential for some trades, a paper qualification, with no practical experience, doesn’t allow people to hit the ground running.

I’ve personally just completed an apprenticeship, through work, which included doing a degree at University, and hopefully soon getting Chartered Manager status, so have recent experience of the education system, this may have been different for a mature student, though I did sample a pot noodle or two whilst on study days , let’s put it this way, if you ran a business in the same way that the corse was run you wouldn’t be in business for very long!.

I’ve done this to give myself a Management qualification that is nothing to do with the motor trade, giving me the option of coming away from it completely and doing something else, (I know, grass is always greener), because I can’t see how places will continue to function with the lack of qualified people, no doubt this also applies to a lot of other industries, however at least I now have ‘options’ should my current role no longer be viable.

[Kiwi Craig]

Same problem here in New Zealand. Labour PM in early 2000's thought the same as Tony Blair (probably got the idea off him).
All these useless Uni degrees that lead nowhere, young ones laden with a huge student debt.
Immigration locked down for Covid far longer than needed, employers screaming for workers. Cant even get fruit pickers, traditionly done by foreign backpackers, so the fruit rots on the ground....criminal.

[Exminiman]

This has been the situation as long as I can remember, and I'm nearly 70 now. Britain has a weird, and disparaging, attitude to trades and being trained for them. It's snobby and highly destructive. Compare the situation with that in Germany where trades are highly valued and respected, apprentices are properly trained (it takes six months for a trainee carpenter there to learn to hang a door properly for example) and people who work with their hands are respected and admired as they rightly should be . . .

Agree with every word of this, I also think it was at the reason behind Blair’s’ ideas……..he also didn’t value trades etc…

It would really help to “ re-proffesionalise”( struggling for a word) occupations, anyone can walk onto a building site, engineering shop, bodyshop, workshop, whatever, which is not true in other countries. To set minimum requirements, would help elevate cudos and wages in my view.

Be interested to know what the experiance is in other countries..

[richardACS]

This thread makes for very uncomfortable reading because it is all so true.

My trade was Landscape design and build in the private sector, years ago we would take in apprentices under the governments YTS scheme, it was brilliant. The government paid 40.00 per week and we would match this, including a college day release and there was a third party monitor - our's came from industry and I believe voluntary, we would meet up every two months, he would speak to us, speak to the apprentice and the college and together would work to bring the apprentice on by Identifying strengths and weaknesses in their skill set and they are learning in real time.

This then changed to training partnerships, when the funding moved from the apprentice to the trainers and so useless training companies opened up I never understood what they did except take government money. I wonder how countries like China are addressing these issues for we have completely lost the plot and direction....

[Andrew1967]

Yep seemed like a good idea years ago when we started shipping all the kids ff n an industrial scale , kids that normally went into trades/ vocation work, off to Universities at great expense to the taxpayer to study an ‘Ology but now we’ve ended up with subsequent generations of young people with useless ‘Ology degrees who don’t know what to do with them and the result is that the trades are starved of manpower. Great news if you work with your hands but not great news if you employ people who work with their hands!

When I was a teenager only the lucky few went off to Uni, now the pendulum’s swung so far the other way we’re buggered for skilled tradespeople!!

Agree with you Pete (and everyone else).

As a mid 50’s bloke, only the really brainy top set people even thought about Uni, for the rest of us it was college or even straight into a job, whether it be YTS or a real job. I for one couldn’t wait to leave education and get a trade, even though I subsequently spent 20 years doing something else before going back ‘on the tools’.

Trouble is, Blair and subsequent PM’s seem to think all jobs are office based and tech and there’s no need for skilled engineering or trades jobs and a lot of youngsters don’t want to get their hands dirty.

We have a couple young lads at work who are good but the majority of us are late 30’s and 40’s and a big group are 55 plus, all of which (me included) are looking to wind down and not chase the hours to earn the extra money.

Not everyone with an ology wastes their time and racks up a pointless debt although maybe do for sure. My daughter has a Masters degree in Marine Biology and is working with Natural England and involved with anything to do with the southern North Sea. The debt she has (circa £50k) will never been paid off as she only pays a tiny percentage after earning over a certain amount.

But I’m reality this government and subsequent needs to shift the emphasis back to a middle ground of trades and useful degrees !

[Spider]

This thread makes for very uncomfortable reading because it is all so true.

My trade was Landscape design and build in the private sector, years ago we would take in apprentices under the governments YTS scheme, it was brilliant. The government paid 40.00 per week and we would match this, including a college day release and there was a third party monitor - our's came from industry and I believe voluntary, we would meet up every two months, he would speak to us, speak to the apprentice and the college and together would work to bring the apprentice on by Identifying strengths and weaknesses in their skill set and they are learning in real time.

This then changed to training partnerships, when the funding moved from the apprentice to the trainers and so useless training companies opened up I never understood what they did except take government money. I wonder how countries like China are addressing these issues for we have completely lost the plot and direction....

We had a similar Apprentice scheme here and in many Industry sectors now have these (so called) Training Organisations.

Here these Organisation seemed to have come about as there was little incentives in smaller & medium businesses to put on Apprentices as the perception was they had to be carried for around 2 years and took time out of Tradespeople's time on the job for their supervision. It's worse too now with the quality of the few kids looking for Apprenticeships as there SFA Trade teaching at school anymore and often Mum & Dad are University types that don't even know what a screw driver is. I don't say this in a derogatory way against these individuals, they are as I see it, victims of 'the system' they were bought up in.

Here we had the big Government Workshops who used to take in 100's of Apprentices every year as well as Cadet Engineers. The latter particularly I've found good, way better than the average bear as they would be sent out on the job with the Tradespeople to get their hands dirty as well as learning the Academic side of things. I meet so many Engineers these days, brilliant in what they know but haven't a clue which way is up, or that it's the fat end of the Screwdriver that you hold. These Government Workshops - Railways, Electricity, Water - were in later years 'sold' to the Public as inefficient and a drain on the public purse, yarda yarda yarda,,, But, not long before those times, the Government was not only able to run them but also built them. But why do they have to make money ? I thought these were a Public Service. I think in the bigger picture to country's as a whole, it's a bigger drain on the country without them than with them.

In recent times, there's been talk of War coming. If it comes, where are the means by which we can defend ourselves going to come from ? China ?

[wantafaster1]

This has been the situation as long as I can remember, and I'm nearly 70 now. Britain has a weird, and disparaging, attitude to trades and being trained for them. It's snobby and highly destructive. Compare the situation with that in Germany where trades are highly valued and respected, apprentices are properly trained (it takes six months for a trainee carpenter there to learn to hang a door properly for example) and people who work with their hands are respected and admired as they rightly should be . . .

Exactly this, snobbery, and I've actually just read in the Fred Dibnah biography that his parents wanted him to have a "clean hands job". Couple of years back I heard a woman on the radio who was horrified her son wanted to be a plumber! Does that mean people who fix stuff are lower class?

I've had this actually, where you must go to school and pass exams etc, I was sent for work experience and I never went back to the tech. I haven't got any qualifications, but some O levels. Now 35 years through my working career, the younger generation unfortunately, apart from a couple of very bright stars I've trained, are completely lacking in any problem solving initiative.

Not sure about the mainland but we used to have government training schools in Northern Ireland, for plumbing, sparks, motor vehicle and engineering trades etc.
All those soundbites about education and computer tech were the problem, no country can survive pushing bits of paper or emails about the place, we need to manufacture stuff to sell.

[Jason]

The biggest problem is getting the younger generation interested in getting their hands dirty and being interested in learning a trade. I officially left the motor trade over 20yrs ago, but still rebuild transmissions because I enjoy it and take pride in what I do. Over the last couple of years I have been asked several times if I would consider going back into the workshop.
Myself like many of us on here are not getting any younger, the worry is that there is little interest from anyone wanting to soak up all the knowledge we have and show a real interest in wanting to learn how to repair things.

[Peter Laidler]

Also agree with pretty much everything written so far.

Been there, done that....... Ex 60's 5 year specialised engineering apprenticeship, got a LOT of experience in Australia and NZ, put it into practice elsewhere, Came back, went to Uni, engineering again. Daughter studied French (no, I don't understand it either....) at UMIST, Manchester and son, something useless at Oxford. He thinks that us older clever people are stupid. As for owning a 1969 Mini ........ He just rolls around laughing. He tells me that it's not a real one, like his mini cooper

It's the 'change-parts-mechanics who call themselves technicians or specialists that get me. Now that's really got me going and really pissed me off for the weekend. I was teaching him Physics 10 years ago!

Got to add to this. While I was working in Oz and NZ, that's where I REALLY learned about the practicalities of repairing things. They were just so versatile, it was an eye opener

[Polarsilver]

So back to the subject.. Somerford cant get the Staff .. maybe it is time they funded their own young person(s) within a proper Apprentice Scheme & pay the lad or girl proper money as they develop their skills
Bicester Heritage are trying to provide such training scheme

[richardACS]

Becoming an old git can tend to make one generalise and think one knows a thing or two - but heres a spanner.

Computer games, I phones have given the young an outlet to satisfy thirst, hunger, initiative. In the past we would go out and do things to burn of energy and a thirst for knowledge and learn varied skills along the way - even how to communicate by speaking face to face!

We are all dooomed Mr Mannering