| Career Development And Change Advice Blog |
| Career Advice, Job Search, Redundancy and Career Change |
The CBI have called on the government to spend £125m on providing 50,000 new youth apprenticeships. Under the plans each participating employer would receive £2,500 for every apprentice it took on. The government has allocated £500m to a recruitment subsidy fund, the CBI sees the cost of the apprenticeship scheme as coming from this fund. (more…)
BT’s announcement that it is to discontinue its graduate training scheme is the latest blow to what is becoming known as the ‘lost generation’. The number of young people (18-24 year olds) not in work or education is now 835,000, one hundred thousand more than even a year ago.
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The apprenticeship scheme, created by government and fronted by Alan Sugar is coming under fire for being ineffectual. The scheme, which has cost nearly £3 million and aims to create 400,000 apprenticeships over the next ten years has so far managed to find jobs for just 1,000 people. So is it just an expensive gimmick, or is it a scheme of value? (more…)
One initiative being touted in influential circles is known as Alternatives to Redundancy, or ATR. Under this scheme, rather than making staff redundant, employers will pay them them the equivalent of Job Seekers Allowance, in addition to the benefits they receive from the government, for up to six months. After six months they will get their job back. (more…)
More evidence has emerged this week about the parlous state of the graduate recruitment market. Research shows vacanices down by 13% this year for graduate training schemes. Accountancy and the public sector show the greatest recruitment, but the armed forces is the only sector to actually increase its numbers, by 11%. Nevertheless there were only two applications for each graduate place in the armed forces, against 15 for each accountancy place.
But could the decline in graduate places actually be a blessing in disguise?
The Department for Work and Pensions have been testing employers’ adherence to the discrimination laws by sending out bogus job applications from fictitious people with foreign names. They have found that employers ”still discriminate against people solely on the basis of having an ethnic minority name.” Employers are up in arms about the DWP’s tactics but the DWP says it will use the research to help judge levels of discrimination in the jobs market.
A new and potentially highly dangerous trend is emerging in the workplace, driven by the the impact that the recession is having on all our lives. (more…)
One of the immediate effects of the credit crunch and the need for businesses to economise was that companies slashed their training budgets. Now that we are seeing the first tentative signs of recovery, businesses are tentatively looking at training again; after all to survive in the new economy companies will need to be fitter and their staff will need to be engaged and skilled. But training is still expensive and it takes people out of the workplace for extended periods of time, just when their presence is most needed. Which is why we are introducing Career Energy Energisers.
Today’s budget is expected to be a ‘budget for jobs’. Amongst the measures likely to be announced are a job creation scheme for youth, support for the car industry through a scrappage scheme and grants for employers in certain sectors, particularly social care, hospitality and local authorities, to employ eligible job seekers. All welcome stuff, but is it enough? (more…)
Readers of the BBC News website may have seen an item on the forthcoming research by Volunteering England which shows a remarkable upswing in the numbers of active citizens performing duties on an unpaid, volunteer basis.
As a professional Career Consultant at Career Energy I often help clients to overcome gaps in their CV by encouraging them to consider volunteering as a way of becoming an ‘insider’ in a new field. Some people still do not see volunteering as ‘real work’, and therefore (more…)