Our young people, failed

With one in five young people unable to find a job, Unite EC member, Maggie Ryan, addressed conference about the need for more and better apprenticeships.

“This government has failed our young people and it has devalued the meaning of apprenticeships,” she said.

Maggie told the floor that Unite believed the best way to ensure all the UK’s young people have the opportunities they deserve, was to ensure proper vocational training programmes, complementing the academic opportunities open to young people.

“But we also believe that more and better apprenticeships are critical to renewing the British economy and manufacturing,” she added.

The youth unemployment problem is so endemic in the UK that even those cities with the lowest rates (around 17 per cent) are still a third higher than the German national average (8.6 per cent) and double that of Germany’s best performing cities (e.g. Hamburg at five per cent).

Significant barriers, such as large disparities in housing prices and private sector rents, prevent many young people from moving to rapidly growing cities where they have an improved chance of finding work.

Economies such as Germany have focused on vocational learning and apprenticeships to ensure there is a highly skilled labour force for key industrial sectors.

Its strong apprenticeship culture and low youth unemployment rate is a result of employers forging links with schools and targeting school pupils from an early age.

“The UK has a long way to go to emulate this,” Maggie explained, “but there are companies in the UK who are doing innovative work, with unions, in apprenticeships. But they are too few and their schemes are oversubscribed.

“It is vital that there is new blood coming through to ensure a sustainable and vibrant manufacturing sector in the UK. More needs to be done to promote apprenticeships and ensure they are high quality and not the ‘second best’ option when our young people are considering their futures.

She said Unite also believed government must use the procurement process to ensure proper provision for apprentices on all major contracts and open and fair access for under-represented groups.

“Let’s make UK apprenticeships and vocational education something that we can again be proud of,” Maggie concluded.