Hilton Worldwide today announced that its industry-leading growth will create more than 8,500 employment opportunities in Europe in the next three years – bucking the trend of rising unemployment figures. An additional 2,500 hospitality careers will be safeguarded through the conversion of existing hotels to Hilton Worldwide brands.
With more than 110 hotels under development in the region, the global hospitality company will recruit for positions across Europe focusing on strategic growth markets including the UK, Russia, Turkey, Germany and Poland. With continued focus on new development opportunities, the company expects to generate an additional 1,500 new jobs in the coming months with the goal of creating 10,000 new hospitality careers within Hilton Worldwide-branded properties.
More than 30,000 people are currently employed at Hilton Worldwide properties and corporate offices across more than 215 hotels in Europe. The company also boasts the strongest European pipeline in the industry, with more than 110 hotels signed, all of which are expected to open between now and the end of 2014, providing thousands of career opportunities.
Simon Vincent, area president, Europe, said, “While unemployment figures in Europe continue to rise, Hilton Worldwide is experiencing an exciting period of growth which will see us continue to offer a wealth of rewarding career options. As owners and developers continue to affiliate with our world-class brands, attracting, retaining and developing the best people is paramount. We strive to be industry-leaders in this regard and we are working hard to make sure this excellence continues as we grow.”
Key growth markets such as the UK, Russia, Turkey, Germany and Poland will experience the biggest surge in career opportunities. With more than 25 hotels due to open in Russia in the next three years, up to 3,000 new roles are expected to be available in the country.
Approximately 1,500 people will embark on new careers with Hilton Worldwide hotels in the UK with more than 20 new properties expected to open and more than 1,900 careers will be safeguarded through 10 confirmed hotel conversions to the Hilton Worldwide portfolio. Around 800 jobs are expected to be created in Turkey with a development pipeline of more than 14 hotels due to open by 2014. More than 400 new positions are due to be filled in Germany with three new hotels due to open and approximately 750 positions will be created in Poland across 11new hotels.
Ben Bengougam, vice president HR, Europe said, “With continued growth across our European estate, driving the talent agenda is paramount to our recruitment strategy. We are seeking passionate people interested in hospitality careers with a range of experiences as well as transferable skills from backgrounds outside the hospitality industry. Many of our team members have experience in a broad range of sectors and we always welcome this diversity.”
As a leading global hospitality company, Hilton Worldwide offers a wealth of career options with opportunities currently available at entry-level through to senior management. A plethora of different industries help make up the team at Hilton Worldwide including sales & marketing, legal, engineering and construction, feasibility and development, procurement, finance, human resources and management. Hospitality is at the core of Hilton Worldwide’s business with many career opportunities available in food and beverage, front-of-house, fitness and wellness and event management – all of which can help bridge the youth unemployment gap.
Key hotels due to open within the next 12 months include: Hilton and Hilton Garden Inn Frankfurt, Germany (Q4 2011); Waldorf Astoria Berlin, Germany (Q2 2012); Hilton Garden Inn Krasnodar, Russia (Q2 2012); Doubletree by Hilton Lodz, Poland (Q4 2012); Hilton Bursa and Hampton by Hilton Bursa, Turkey (Q1 2012); DoubleTree by Hilton Lincoln, UK (Q4 2011); and Hilton St George’s Park, Burton on Trent and Hampton by Hilton St George’s Park, Burton on Trent, UK (Q3 2012).
Hilton Worldwide supports the Government’s Get Britain Working campaign, committing 100 placements at hotels around the country this year – more than one for every hotel it operates. The initiative is designed to help unemployed young people to develop the skills needed to secure a sustainable job and has resulted in 15 young people taking on full time, paid employment with Hilton Worldwide.
A range of award-winning training and development initiatives are also available at Hilton Worldwide such as the fast-track graduate programme, Elevator, which identifies and nurtures talented graduates and high potential candidates from within Hilton Worldwide. These rising stars go through a thorough 18 month training programme before assuming their first management position, and then are usually fast tracked to senior leadership positions, with the aim of developing into successful hotel general managers.
Apprenticeships are also a key focus at Hilton Worldwide, with its Chef Apprenticeship Academy helping 60 aspiring, young chefs into a 12-month apprenticeship. The programme combines college-based courses with on-the-job training from some of the company’s most talented chefs. Highlights of the programme include executive head chef master classes, an insight into the workings of Michelin-starred Galvin at Windows, personal mentoring and the chance to compete for the “Chef Apprentice of the Year” award.
Award-winning e-learning facility, Hilton Worldwide University, is also available to all team members across the world providing access to on-line learning and development. With more than 2,000 courses available in 18 languages, it offers five different ‘colleges’ titled Owners, Leaders, General Studies, Commercial and Hotel – each with its own Dean.
Hilton Worldwide has featured highly in workplace and graduate job surveys across Europe including the Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For 2011; winner of the most popular graduate recruiter for hospitality, leisure and tourism at the 2011 Target Jobs National Graduate Recruitment Awards; and is the highest ranking hospitality employer in Germany’s Survey Schülerbarometer 2011 as voted by school leavers. Just this month, at the MKG Group’s 12th Annual Worldwide Hospitality awards in Paris, Hilton Worldwide was recognised with the Grand Prix award. A judging panel and members of the awards ceremony audience voted in favour of Hilton Worldwide based on successful global development, innovation, human resources and commercial performances.
Source: Onrec.com, Tuesday 29th November 2011
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Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Co-Op Graduate Job Scheme Expanded
The Co-op has announced plans to increase the number of places on its graduate job scheme from 19 to 27 in an effort to help with youth unemployment.
The Co-op Graduate Leadership Programme will now consist of four graduate programmes in Human Resources, Finance, Retail and Business Management.
Earlier this year, the Co-op also introduced an apprenticeship programme which seeks to put 2,000 young people into jobs in several of its various business enterprises.
The company will also continue to work with campuses across the UK to try to increase the employability of students so that they are in a better position to secure a graduate job when they leave university.
The Co-op Group has also tried to press other businesses and organisations to offer similar schemes to help out the job situation for graduates, students and young people in the UK.
Graduate programme manager for the Co-operative Group, Rachel Rotherham, said: “The expansion of our graduate programme reflects The Co-operative's commitment to inspiring young people and tacking the shockingly high youth unemployment in this country. In such a challenging economic climate, it is really tough for all young people, including graduates, to find a job and we would urge other business to take similar action by increasing the number of opportunities they offer young people.”
Source: E4s.co.uk, Monday 28th November 2011
The Co-op Graduate Leadership Programme will now consist of four graduate programmes in Human Resources, Finance, Retail and Business Management.
Earlier this year, the Co-op also introduced an apprenticeship programme which seeks to put 2,000 young people into jobs in several of its various business enterprises.
The company will also continue to work with campuses across the UK to try to increase the employability of students so that they are in a better position to secure a graduate job when they leave university.
The Co-op Group has also tried to press other businesses and organisations to offer similar schemes to help out the job situation for graduates, students and young people in the UK.
Graduate programme manager for the Co-operative Group, Rachel Rotherham, said: “The expansion of our graduate programme reflects The Co-operative's commitment to inspiring young people and tacking the shockingly high youth unemployment in this country. In such a challenging economic climate, it is really tough for all young people, including graduates, to find a job and we would urge other business to take similar action by increasing the number of opportunities they offer young people.”
Source: E4s.co.uk, Monday 28th November 2011
Monday, 28 November 2011
Higher pay in public sector is due to skill levels
With a public sector strike planned for Wednesday, the timing of the release by the Government of a statistic comparing public and private sector pay has been carefully stage-managed (News, November 24).
It was disappointing that the Belfast Telegraph did not also refer to another Government report, published on July 5, that explains how difficult it is to make comparisons between the two sectors 'because of the differences in the types of job and characteristics of employees'.
Essentially, comparing the public sector with the private sector is not comparing like with like.
There is a higher proportion of higher-skilled and professional jobs in the public sector than the private sector and more lower-skilled jobs in the private sector.
Indeed, many lower-skilled jobs in the public sector have been outsourced to the private sector.
When similar jobs in each sector are compared, private sector pay tends to be higher. For example, a graduate in the private sector earns 5.7% more than a graduate in the public sector.
July's report points out that the data used to compare pay in each sector does not take into account bonus payments (worth £20bn last year in the private sector), company cars and private health insurance, all of which increase the value of private-sector pay.
Source: Belfasttelegraph.co.uk, Monday 28th November 2011
It was disappointing that the Belfast Telegraph did not also refer to another Government report, published on July 5, that explains how difficult it is to make comparisons between the two sectors 'because of the differences in the types of job and characteristics of employees'.
Essentially, comparing the public sector with the private sector is not comparing like with like.
There is a higher proportion of higher-skilled and professional jobs in the public sector than the private sector and more lower-skilled jobs in the private sector.
Indeed, many lower-skilled jobs in the public sector have been outsourced to the private sector.
When similar jobs in each sector are compared, private sector pay tends to be higher. For example, a graduate in the private sector earns 5.7% more than a graduate in the public sector.
July's report points out that the data used to compare pay in each sector does not take into account bonus payments (worth £20bn last year in the private sector), company cars and private health insurance, all of which increase the value of private-sector pay.
Source: Belfasttelegraph.co.uk, Monday 28th November 2011
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Law graduates face a bleak future at the bar
With 65 students applying for each training place, many would-be solicitors face not finding a job within the five-year post-graduation limit.
Youth aside, clean-cut law students don't appear to have much in common with the Occupy London protesters. But last week there was a glimpse of the level of their anger when an unemployed bar school graduate launched a campaign to occupy the inns of court.
"Through no fault of our own, a generation of bar professional training course (BPTC) and legal practice course (LPC) graduates find ourselves with no jobs – or no jobs as lawyers anyway," wrote the graduate under the pseudonym OccupyTheInns on Legal Cheek, a blog I edit, after making contact with me on Twitter. "The lucky ones are paralegals," the graduate continued. "The unlucky ones work in bars (not the bar)."
While support for the campaign appears to have been very limited – many law graduates strongly criticised the sentiment behind it – the broad message of discontent has struck a chord. One poster wrote: "the losers (myself included) are beginning to sense their own strength. We are the majority. And the majority rules in the game of 'democracy'." Similar messages of support appeared on Twitter.
Certainly, the situation facing those graduating from law school is bleak. Only around a fifth of all graduates of the BPTC (the year-long course law graduates must take to become barristers) will ever practise at the bar. In the solicitors' branch of the profession, recent research by the Association of Graduate Recruiters found that 65 law students apply for each training contract place. In the context of rising general youth unemployment – joblessness among 16- to 24-year-olds hit 1 million between July and September, with one in five young people now out of work – it's no wonder wannabe lawyers are feeling pessimistic.
Not that it has ever been easy to enter the profession. While the impending legal aid cuts have seen barristers' chambers take on fewer recruits, changes to the bar's funding model under the last government have made the quest to become a barrister an increasingly uphill struggle for well over a decade. Indeed, Adam Fellows, a BPTC graduate with a 2.1 from St Andrews who was called to the bar in July but has yet to find a barrister traineeship, says a one to two year spell doing CV-bolstering legal support work has been the norm for some time. (Fellows is working as a legal researcher for a publishing company while he applies for jobs.) "The bar is extremely competitive," he explains. "I always knew how hard it was going to be, and having invested a lot in this, my plan is to keep going until the clock runs out [in five years when the BPTC expires]."
Similarly, graduate jobs at the top solicitors' firms have always been hard to come by, with places at magic circle City firms long the preserve of really high achievers. What has changed is the graduate hiring pattern of commercial law firms outside the elite bracket. Before the 2008 crash, the media law firm Olswang took on more than 20 trainees a year; this year it cancelled its 2013 graduate recruitment altogether. (Like many other large law firms, Olswang recruits two years in advance).
Krish Nair, an Edinburgh University graduate (2.1, history and politics) who completed law school this summer, is the sort of candidate who would have been snapped up during the boom years. Unable to find a training contract, he works four days per week as an unpaid volunteer at Citizens Advice in London while living at home with his parents. Nair is scraping by writing some paid blogs for law firms, while attempting to build a profile through his personal blog, The Training Contract Hawk.
"My strategy is to keep building my CV and show law firms that I might be able to add value to them in a way that sets me apart from other graduates," he says.
The last time unemployment was so high was in the early 1990s, when Thomas Laidlaw, head of academic development at LexisNexis UK, was attempting to bag a trainee lawyer position. After a series of paralegal roles and a spell in a law firm's post-room, Laidlaw secured a job at the Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents. He hasn't looked back since, and has no regrets about not becoming a lawyer. His advice to today's graduates is to think outside the box.
"The 90s recession proved a blessing in disguise for me," he recalls. "Once I'd entered legal publishing, I found myself fairly quickly working with senior people in the legal profession and getting far more responsibility than my friends who had become solicitors."
The economic situation may be worse than the 1990s, but Laidlaw is far from gloomy about jobless law graduates' prospects. Indeed, he reckons there are some unique opportunities for open-minded legal wannabes.
"The liberalising effect of the Legal Services Act, allied to technological developments, means we're seeing a blurring of areas like law and IT. The status of actually practising as a lawyer may well begin to decline, and graduates who recognise this early on could find themselves well-positioned in the future," he says.
Other than a possible increase in non-legal options for law graduates, are there any other rays of hope?
Well, earlier this week Wilberforce Chambers, an elite group of barristers, announced it was raising its starting salary to £65,000. As with other areas of society, the very top rung of the legal profession continues to do rather well, with the commercial bar, in particular, benefiting from a wave of financial crisis-spurred bank-versus-bank litigation. Don't expect to find its members camping out in the inns of court any time soon.
Source: Alex Aldridge, Guardian.co.uk, Friday 25th November 2011
Youth aside, clean-cut law students don't appear to have much in common with the Occupy London protesters. But last week there was a glimpse of the level of their anger when an unemployed bar school graduate launched a campaign to occupy the inns of court.
"Through no fault of our own, a generation of bar professional training course (BPTC) and legal practice course (LPC) graduates find ourselves with no jobs – or no jobs as lawyers anyway," wrote the graduate under the pseudonym OccupyTheInns on Legal Cheek, a blog I edit, after making contact with me on Twitter. "The lucky ones are paralegals," the graduate continued. "The unlucky ones work in bars (not the bar)."
While support for the campaign appears to have been very limited – many law graduates strongly criticised the sentiment behind it – the broad message of discontent has struck a chord. One poster wrote: "the losers (myself included) are beginning to sense their own strength. We are the majority. And the majority rules in the game of 'democracy'." Similar messages of support appeared on Twitter.
Certainly, the situation facing those graduating from law school is bleak. Only around a fifth of all graduates of the BPTC (the year-long course law graduates must take to become barristers) will ever practise at the bar. In the solicitors' branch of the profession, recent research by the Association of Graduate Recruiters found that 65 law students apply for each training contract place. In the context of rising general youth unemployment – joblessness among 16- to 24-year-olds hit 1 million between July and September, with one in five young people now out of work – it's no wonder wannabe lawyers are feeling pessimistic.
Not that it has ever been easy to enter the profession. While the impending legal aid cuts have seen barristers' chambers take on fewer recruits, changes to the bar's funding model under the last government have made the quest to become a barrister an increasingly uphill struggle for well over a decade. Indeed, Adam Fellows, a BPTC graduate with a 2.1 from St Andrews who was called to the bar in July but has yet to find a barrister traineeship, says a one to two year spell doing CV-bolstering legal support work has been the norm for some time. (Fellows is working as a legal researcher for a publishing company while he applies for jobs.) "The bar is extremely competitive," he explains. "I always knew how hard it was going to be, and having invested a lot in this, my plan is to keep going until the clock runs out [in five years when the BPTC expires]."
Similarly, graduate jobs at the top solicitors' firms have always been hard to come by, with places at magic circle City firms long the preserve of really high achievers. What has changed is the graduate hiring pattern of commercial law firms outside the elite bracket. Before the 2008 crash, the media law firm Olswang took on more than 20 trainees a year; this year it cancelled its 2013 graduate recruitment altogether. (Like many other large law firms, Olswang recruits two years in advance).
Krish Nair, an Edinburgh University graduate (2.1, history and politics) who completed law school this summer, is the sort of candidate who would have been snapped up during the boom years. Unable to find a training contract, he works four days per week as an unpaid volunteer at Citizens Advice in London while living at home with his parents. Nair is scraping by writing some paid blogs for law firms, while attempting to build a profile through his personal blog, The Training Contract Hawk.
"My strategy is to keep building my CV and show law firms that I might be able to add value to them in a way that sets me apart from other graduates," he says.
The last time unemployment was so high was in the early 1990s, when Thomas Laidlaw, head of academic development at LexisNexis UK, was attempting to bag a trainee lawyer position. After a series of paralegal roles and a spell in a law firm's post-room, Laidlaw secured a job at the Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents. He hasn't looked back since, and has no regrets about not becoming a lawyer. His advice to today's graduates is to think outside the box.
"The 90s recession proved a blessing in disguise for me," he recalls. "Once I'd entered legal publishing, I found myself fairly quickly working with senior people in the legal profession and getting far more responsibility than my friends who had become solicitors."
The economic situation may be worse than the 1990s, but Laidlaw is far from gloomy about jobless law graduates' prospects. Indeed, he reckons there are some unique opportunities for open-minded legal wannabes.
"The liberalising effect of the Legal Services Act, allied to technological developments, means we're seeing a blurring of areas like law and IT. The status of actually practising as a lawyer may well begin to decline, and graduates who recognise this early on could find themselves well-positioned in the future," he says.
Other than a possible increase in non-legal options for law graduates, are there any other rays of hope?
Well, earlier this week Wilberforce Chambers, an elite group of barristers, announced it was raising its starting salary to £65,000. As with other areas of society, the very top rung of the legal profession continues to do rather well, with the commercial bar, in particular, benefiting from a wave of financial crisis-spurred bank-versus-bank litigation. Don't expect to find its members camping out in the inns of court any time soon.
Source: Alex Aldridge, Guardian.co.uk, Friday 25th November 2011
Saturday, 26 November 2011
The truth behind the new jobless generation
It is assessment day at the Warrington office of the recruitment company BMS, and a business studies graduate rises nervously from his chair. It is his turn to sell himself to an audience of his peers in 30 seconds, in what management types call an “elevator pitch”, a punchy summary short enough to be delivered to a superior or customer during a ride in a lift.
“The reason I think I’d be good at business-to-business sales,” he mumbles, “is… err… I’ve got good communication skills. I can describe products. I’ve got listening skills. Err…” His barely audible monotone falters and then trails off into silence. He finishes speaking before his time is up, then slumps in his chair.
The person in question is 21 years old and holds a degree from a respected redbrick university. He is one of 17 graduates here, on this grey retail estate, looking for a job in sales. Most of his competitors are, it must be said, rather more articulate. Ten are working in relatively menial jobs and seven are unemployed. One of the latter is claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance and six are entirely dependent on that strained but unfailing institution, the Bank of Mum and Dad. Mark Milsted, the man in charge of the assessment, has seen it all before: intelligent people who have failed to master basic communication and cannot organise their thoughts.
“They have gained a qualification because they have enjoyed the subject matter, without thinking where it is going to lead,” he says. “There is a mismatch between what employers want and what is on offer. If you are an old-school employer you don’t understand going to university to study something you will never use.”
The redbrick business graduate may hold a relevant degree, but his inability to sustain a train of thought puts him at the bottom of the class. Only six of the 17 are considered truly promising material.
Warrington has the third-highest rating in Britain for youth unemployment, a scourge that has re-erupted on to the political landscape. In the third quarter of this year the number of people between the ages of 16 and 24 looking for work passed the one million mark. At 1.02 million, the figure is the worst since the 1980s, and includes 286,000 students in full-time education seeking work to supplement their income. Even worse is the figure for 16- to 24-year-olds classed as Neet – Not in Employment, Education or Training. At 1.16 million, they represent one fifth of their age group, the problem being most acute in the North of England.
As the economy continues to splutter, with third-quarter growth of 0.5 per cent, the Coalition is faced with a political running sore. A sticking plaster was applied yesterday when the Government announced £1 billion of spending over three years to provide young people with subsidised places in the private sector. From next April, employers will be offered £2,275 per recruit for taking on people aged 18 to 24 for six months. Some 160,000 young people should benefit from the scheme, and up to 410,00 are to be offered placements of some kind or another, but the number of real jobs created is anyone’s guess.
In any case, such solutions do nothing to address one of the central failings of the British economy: the chronic inability of the British education system to deliver useful employees to commerce and industry. People like the tongue-tied business studies graduate illustrate a problem cited time and time again by employers: young people lacking basic skills, even at the graduate end of the scale, but imbued with an over-healthy sense of entitlement.
“It’s all very good going to university and coming out with these degrees, but you must have the social skills to go with them,” says Mandy Brook, director of the Eastbourne-based agency, Recruitment South East. “You need to be able to look someone in the eye and have a conversation. I would say 70 per cent of the children out of university and further education can’t do those things.”
Few applicants, she says, are prepared to lower their sights and take more menial jobs to gain knowledge of the workplace.
“They turn around and say: 'That’s not what I was looking for.’ You explain the market to them but they say they will wait or they strop off. They are hoping for £20,000 or more.”
A solution is readily available: thousands of polite, hard-working, well-qualified young people from the eastern countries of the European Union and elsewhere. With much of Britain’s human capital wasted, the gaps have been filled by foreigners. Of the 29.17 million people aged 16 and over in employment in the United Kingdom, 2.56 million are non-British nationals. At the same time there are 2.62 million in this country unemployed and 9.36 million people classed as economically inactive. While the British component of the workforce shrank by 280,000 in the year to September, the overseas workforce in Britain expanded by 147,000. By far the biggest foreign contingent is from the eastern EU – Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Baltic states. There are 669,000 workers from those countries here, an increase of 94,000 on last year.
“The foreigners are the keenest,” says Miss Brook. “They have the skills and they will work for pretty much any money. They are hard working, there on time and stay late if needed. It’s easier to take someone like that on than someone who thinks the world owes them a living.”
The competition for British young people comes not only from foreigners of a similar age. Miss Brook says she is encountering more applicants aged 55 and over, people driven back into work by inadequate pensions and rising prices.
Joblessness among the young is rising across the EU and the UK rate is close to the average of the 27 member states, 21.4 per cent. The situation is more acute in Spain (48 per cent), Greece (43.5) and Italy (29.3). But in Germany it is nine per cent.
Europe’s greatest economic power has long led the way in youth training with its dual education system, which combines highly regulated apprenticeships in the private sector with vocational training in colleges. Employers are locked into training contracts and cannot exploit apprentices by paying low wages for minimal instruction. The qualifications are highly regarded.
David Fox takes on at least six young people a year to train at PP Electrical Systems in Walsall.
“We like the idea of apprentices because if you take a youngster who has an aptitude for manufacturing you have a clean sheet of paper to work with,” he says. “We want people who pay attention, turn up on time and look tidy. People with the wrong attitude fail. You can’t change them; we have found it impossible. We had one incident in the factory when some people were firing air pistols.”
Adam Marshall, director of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), says the UK must aim for a system similar to that in Germany.
“British political culture is short-termist,” he says. “Every new minister of every political colour is intent on leaving his or her mark on the education system. The Germans set up their apprenticeship system 50 years ago and they haven’t changed it substantially since.”
In a survey of 7,000 businesses, BCC asked members how confident they felt when hiring from British universities. Only 45 per cent expressed high confidence in the graduates they met.
“The overwhelming feeling among our members is that the system is not delivering. Funding in the British higher and further education system follows the interests of the learner, not the needs of the economy. So you hear employers complaining that the local college churns out more and more hairdressers and media studies people, but not the technicians they need in their factories. The reason is that the college is incentivised by the funding system to provide the courses asked for by students.”
An obsession with university as the be-all and end-all of education has, says Mr Marshall, distracted the nation from creating a workforce skilled at all levels.
“Tony Blair’s target of 50 per cent of pupils attending university was one of the most misguided policy ideas of the time – shovelling people into institutions without career prospects at the end. Sixty-five per cent of young people are never going to walk through the door of a university. Yet listening to our university-educated media, you would think universities are the only things that matter.”
Employers, he says, are not fundamentally biased against homegrown applicants but will often choose foreigners because they solve the problem.
“Our members say to us over and over again: I need the right person at the right time and I am not going to look at their ethnicity, just their suitability. Employers want the state to provide a base: people with literacy, numeracy, presentability, the ability to take instruction and solve problems. They say that if they are provided with these people they will do the rest – making them the best lathe turner or nuclear power worker. They want good raw material. What they resent is having to do the remedial work when the state and parents have failed.”
Companies are now doing that remedial work, setting up training schemes to instill basic skills. Vocational education, says Mr Marshall, must stop being a political football and become a strategic national concern.
“When we have a problem in this country, we re-badge something or change the institutional arrangements and hope it will go away; and two years later it is worse. It is a systemic problem. The solution is to be bold, be radical, make the reforms necessary and then stick with them.”
Adam Dilworth has learned the hard way. Now 23, he graduated in microbiology from Liverpool University last year. He has applied for 25 jobs in management and sales without success, and has been working full-time in a university coffee shop, earning £14,000.
“My school was very focused on getting degrees,” he says. “ I didn’t focus on the career I wanted; I thought I’d come out and be fine.
“There are a lot of jobs out there but people aren’t willing to do them. My job is, without sounding snobby, beneath me. But a job’s a job.”
Source: Emily Gosden and Neil Tweedie, Telegraph.co.uk, Saturday 26th November 2011
“The reason I think I’d be good at business-to-business sales,” he mumbles, “is… err… I’ve got good communication skills. I can describe products. I’ve got listening skills. Err…” His barely audible monotone falters and then trails off into silence. He finishes speaking before his time is up, then slumps in his chair.
The person in question is 21 years old and holds a degree from a respected redbrick university. He is one of 17 graduates here, on this grey retail estate, looking for a job in sales. Most of his competitors are, it must be said, rather more articulate. Ten are working in relatively menial jobs and seven are unemployed. One of the latter is claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance and six are entirely dependent on that strained but unfailing institution, the Bank of Mum and Dad. Mark Milsted, the man in charge of the assessment, has seen it all before: intelligent people who have failed to master basic communication and cannot organise their thoughts.
“They have gained a qualification because they have enjoyed the subject matter, without thinking where it is going to lead,” he says. “There is a mismatch between what employers want and what is on offer. If you are an old-school employer you don’t understand going to university to study something you will never use.”
The redbrick business graduate may hold a relevant degree, but his inability to sustain a train of thought puts him at the bottom of the class. Only six of the 17 are considered truly promising material.
Warrington has the third-highest rating in Britain for youth unemployment, a scourge that has re-erupted on to the political landscape. In the third quarter of this year the number of people between the ages of 16 and 24 looking for work passed the one million mark. At 1.02 million, the figure is the worst since the 1980s, and includes 286,000 students in full-time education seeking work to supplement their income. Even worse is the figure for 16- to 24-year-olds classed as Neet – Not in Employment, Education or Training. At 1.16 million, they represent one fifth of their age group, the problem being most acute in the North of England.
As the economy continues to splutter, with third-quarter growth of 0.5 per cent, the Coalition is faced with a political running sore. A sticking plaster was applied yesterday when the Government announced £1 billion of spending over three years to provide young people with subsidised places in the private sector. From next April, employers will be offered £2,275 per recruit for taking on people aged 18 to 24 for six months. Some 160,000 young people should benefit from the scheme, and up to 410,00 are to be offered placements of some kind or another, but the number of real jobs created is anyone’s guess.
In any case, such solutions do nothing to address one of the central failings of the British economy: the chronic inability of the British education system to deliver useful employees to commerce and industry. People like the tongue-tied business studies graduate illustrate a problem cited time and time again by employers: young people lacking basic skills, even at the graduate end of the scale, but imbued with an over-healthy sense of entitlement.
“It’s all very good going to university and coming out with these degrees, but you must have the social skills to go with them,” says Mandy Brook, director of the Eastbourne-based agency, Recruitment South East. “You need to be able to look someone in the eye and have a conversation. I would say 70 per cent of the children out of university and further education can’t do those things.”
Few applicants, she says, are prepared to lower their sights and take more menial jobs to gain knowledge of the workplace.
“They turn around and say: 'That’s not what I was looking for.’ You explain the market to them but they say they will wait or they strop off. They are hoping for £20,000 or more.”
A solution is readily available: thousands of polite, hard-working, well-qualified young people from the eastern countries of the European Union and elsewhere. With much of Britain’s human capital wasted, the gaps have been filled by foreigners. Of the 29.17 million people aged 16 and over in employment in the United Kingdom, 2.56 million are non-British nationals. At the same time there are 2.62 million in this country unemployed and 9.36 million people classed as economically inactive. While the British component of the workforce shrank by 280,000 in the year to September, the overseas workforce in Britain expanded by 147,000. By far the biggest foreign contingent is from the eastern EU – Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Baltic states. There are 669,000 workers from those countries here, an increase of 94,000 on last year.
“The foreigners are the keenest,” says Miss Brook. “They have the skills and they will work for pretty much any money. They are hard working, there on time and stay late if needed. It’s easier to take someone like that on than someone who thinks the world owes them a living.”
The competition for British young people comes not only from foreigners of a similar age. Miss Brook says she is encountering more applicants aged 55 and over, people driven back into work by inadequate pensions and rising prices.
Joblessness among the young is rising across the EU and the UK rate is close to the average of the 27 member states, 21.4 per cent. The situation is more acute in Spain (48 per cent), Greece (43.5) and Italy (29.3). But in Germany it is nine per cent.
Europe’s greatest economic power has long led the way in youth training with its dual education system, which combines highly regulated apprenticeships in the private sector with vocational training in colleges. Employers are locked into training contracts and cannot exploit apprentices by paying low wages for minimal instruction. The qualifications are highly regarded.
David Fox takes on at least six young people a year to train at PP Electrical Systems in Walsall.
“We like the idea of apprentices because if you take a youngster who has an aptitude for manufacturing you have a clean sheet of paper to work with,” he says. “We want people who pay attention, turn up on time and look tidy. People with the wrong attitude fail. You can’t change them; we have found it impossible. We had one incident in the factory when some people were firing air pistols.”
Adam Marshall, director of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), says the UK must aim for a system similar to that in Germany.
“British political culture is short-termist,” he says. “Every new minister of every political colour is intent on leaving his or her mark on the education system. The Germans set up their apprenticeship system 50 years ago and they haven’t changed it substantially since.”
In a survey of 7,000 businesses, BCC asked members how confident they felt when hiring from British universities. Only 45 per cent expressed high confidence in the graduates they met.
“The overwhelming feeling among our members is that the system is not delivering. Funding in the British higher and further education system follows the interests of the learner, not the needs of the economy. So you hear employers complaining that the local college churns out more and more hairdressers and media studies people, but not the technicians they need in their factories. The reason is that the college is incentivised by the funding system to provide the courses asked for by students.”
An obsession with university as the be-all and end-all of education has, says Mr Marshall, distracted the nation from creating a workforce skilled at all levels.
“Tony Blair’s target of 50 per cent of pupils attending university was one of the most misguided policy ideas of the time – shovelling people into institutions without career prospects at the end. Sixty-five per cent of young people are never going to walk through the door of a university. Yet listening to our university-educated media, you would think universities are the only things that matter.”
Employers, he says, are not fundamentally biased against homegrown applicants but will often choose foreigners because they solve the problem.
“Our members say to us over and over again: I need the right person at the right time and I am not going to look at their ethnicity, just their suitability. Employers want the state to provide a base: people with literacy, numeracy, presentability, the ability to take instruction and solve problems. They say that if they are provided with these people they will do the rest – making them the best lathe turner or nuclear power worker. They want good raw material. What they resent is having to do the remedial work when the state and parents have failed.”
Companies are now doing that remedial work, setting up training schemes to instill basic skills. Vocational education, says Mr Marshall, must stop being a political football and become a strategic national concern.
“When we have a problem in this country, we re-badge something or change the institutional arrangements and hope it will go away; and two years later it is worse. It is a systemic problem. The solution is to be bold, be radical, make the reforms necessary and then stick with them.”
Adam Dilworth has learned the hard way. Now 23, he graduated in microbiology from Liverpool University last year. He has applied for 25 jobs in management and sales without success, and has been working full-time in a university coffee shop, earning £14,000.
“My school was very focused on getting degrees,” he says. “ I didn’t focus on the career I wanted; I thought I’d come out and be fine.
“There are a lot of jobs out there but people aren’t willing to do them. My job is, without sounding snobby, beneath me. But a job’s a job.”
Source: Emily Gosden and Neil Tweedie, Telegraph.co.uk, Saturday 26th November 2011
Friday, 25 November 2011
The Co-op enhances apprenticeship and graduate schemes, encouraging other businesses to help young unemployed
The Co-operative Group has called on businesses to do more to support young people and help them get a job, following last week’s news youth unemployment has topped one million.
In response to increasing demand from graduates, the retailer has increased the number of places available on its Graduate Leadership Programme from 19 to 27.
This follows the launch of The Co-operative's Apprenticeship Academy earlier this year, which will provide 2,000 jobs for young people over the next two years right across its diverse family of businesses, including food, financial services, pharmacy, funerals and farms.
The Co-operative has also introduced two new graduate programmes to its portfolio. It now offers graduate roles across four different functions - HR, retail operations, business management and finance.
Rachel Rotherham, The Co-operative's graduate programme manager, said: "The expansion of our graduate programme reflects The Co-operative's commitment to inspiring young people and tacking the shockingly high youth unemployment in this country. In such a challenging economic climate, it is really tough for all young people, including graduates, to find a job and we would urge other business to take similar action by increasing the number of opportunities they offer young people."
The Co-operative Group works closely with universities throughout the UK to help undergraduates develop their employability and increase their chances of gaining employment after they graduate. Skills sessions run by The Co-operative Group at universities across the UK have had very high attendance levels from students.
Source: HRmagazine.co.uk, Thursday 24th November 2011
In response to increasing demand from graduates, the retailer has increased the number of places available on its Graduate Leadership Programme from 19 to 27.
This follows the launch of The Co-operative's Apprenticeship Academy earlier this year, which will provide 2,000 jobs for young people over the next two years right across its diverse family of businesses, including food, financial services, pharmacy, funerals and farms.
The Co-operative has also introduced two new graduate programmes to its portfolio. It now offers graduate roles across four different functions - HR, retail operations, business management and finance.
Rachel Rotherham, The Co-operative's graduate programme manager, said: "The expansion of our graduate programme reflects The Co-operative's commitment to inspiring young people and tacking the shockingly high youth unemployment in this country. In such a challenging economic climate, it is really tough for all young people, including graduates, to find a job and we would urge other business to take similar action by increasing the number of opportunities they offer young people."
The Co-operative Group works closely with universities throughout the UK to help undergraduates develop their employability and increase their chances of gaining employment after they graduate. Skills sessions run by The Co-operative Group at universities across the UK have had very high attendance levels from students.
Source: HRmagazine.co.uk, Thursday 24th November 2011
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Nestlé to create 300 new jobs in Derbyshire
Nestlé UK & Ireland has invested £110 million in its Tutbury site in Derbyshire and the creation of 300 new jobs.
The extension to the existing NESCAFÉ Dolce Gusto plant will treble its production capacity.
Already a major employer in the local area, the workforce at the factory has grown from 160 to 500 employees since 2006 and will expand to 800 people by 2013. Of the 300 new employees some will become part of the first intake into the Nestlé Academy, a new initiative under which Nestlé UK & Ireland has committed to double its number of graduates, apprentices and internships.
Paul Grimwood, chairman and CEO, Nestlé UK & Ireland said: "Over the past five years we have undertaken a multi-million pound investment programme in the UK, establishing our next generation of world class competitive manufacturing facilities. This investment in Tutbury will extend our best in class facility, trebling our production capacity for export to over 38 countries across the globe. In order to grow we need to innovate and we are committed to the continued modernisation of our UK manufacturing capability."
"Recruiting the best people for our business is the key to our continued success. Through the Nestlé Academy we will double our number of apprentices, graduates and internships supporting the economy through the training of skilled workers . We will also provide on the job training which will open academic study to those who otherwise might not feel this is a route open to them."
Tutbury is one of only two production centres for NESCAFÉ Dolce Gusto in the world. Since its launch in 2006 demand for the 'coffee shop at home system' has been phenomenal with current growth of around 50%. NESCAFÉ Dolce Gusto is now available in 41 countries and in 2010 had a turnover of CHF 450 million. In March 2011 Nestlé announced an investment of CHF 64 million into a new production line at the NESCAFÉ Dolce Gusto factory in Spain which will double production and create 150 more jobs.
Recruitment is already underway for positions at the Tutbury factory. The Nestlé Academy brings together the company's Graduate and Apprentice Programmes, Direct Entry Schemes and 'on the job' vocational training and qualifications.
Source: HRmagazine.co.uk, Thursday 24th November 2011
The extension to the existing NESCAFÉ Dolce Gusto plant will treble its production capacity.
Already a major employer in the local area, the workforce at the factory has grown from 160 to 500 employees since 2006 and will expand to 800 people by 2013. Of the 300 new employees some will become part of the first intake into the Nestlé Academy, a new initiative under which Nestlé UK & Ireland has committed to double its number of graduates, apprentices and internships.
Paul Grimwood, chairman and CEO, Nestlé UK & Ireland said: "Over the past five years we have undertaken a multi-million pound investment programme in the UK, establishing our next generation of world class competitive manufacturing facilities. This investment in Tutbury will extend our best in class facility, trebling our production capacity for export to over 38 countries across the globe. In order to grow we need to innovate and we are committed to the continued modernisation of our UK manufacturing capability."
"Recruiting the best people for our business is the key to our continued success. Through the Nestlé Academy we will double our number of apprentices, graduates and internships supporting the economy through the training of skilled workers . We will also provide on the job training which will open academic study to those who otherwise might not feel this is a route open to them."
Tutbury is one of only two production centres for NESCAFÉ Dolce Gusto in the world. Since its launch in 2006 demand for the 'coffee shop at home system' has been phenomenal with current growth of around 50%. NESCAFÉ Dolce Gusto is now available in 41 countries and in 2010 had a turnover of CHF 450 million. In March 2011 Nestlé announced an investment of CHF 64 million into a new production line at the NESCAFÉ Dolce Gusto factory in Spain which will double production and create 150 more jobs.
Recruitment is already underway for positions at the Tutbury factory. The Nestlé Academy brings together the company's Graduate and Apprentice Programmes, Direct Entry Schemes and 'on the job' vocational training and qualifications.
Source: HRmagazine.co.uk, Thursday 24th November 2011
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
Government move to create 32,000 jobs in house building
Further evidence that the coalition government sees the construction industry as essential to economic growth comes from today’s announcement of a £400 million fund to reinvigorate the house building sector. If this fund delivers on its aims, it could also mean a growth in graduate jobs. The government believes that the initiative can support up to 32,000 jobs. While a good proportion of those will be for trade professionals and experienced hires, it’s likely that a number of the jobs would be aimed at new graduates.
The ‘Get Britain Building’ fund aims to build up to 16,000 new homes. This is to include 3,200 affordable homes, which include rental properties owned and managed by local authorities and registered landlords.
The fund forms part of a wider government housing strategy, which also provides an additional £50 million (on top of this year’s budgeted £100 million) to help refurbish empty homes in (mostly) deprived areas to get them ready for people to use.
Another key part of the strategy is a new scheme for the government to underwrite some mortgages for new houses. The aim is to help first-time buyers, as this will reduce the deposit amount needed. As the construction industry has long lamented the unwillingness of banks to lend, this move should prove popular with house builders.
The Guardian quotes David Cameron and Nick Clegg as saying: ‘The housing market is one of the biggest victims of the credit crunch: lenders won’t lend, so builders can’t build and buyers can buy... It is doing huge damage to our economy.’ The Liberal Democrat communities minister was also quoted as saying: ‘At a time when we need to get every home back into use, tackling empty homes is a very high priority.’
The news is likely to be welcomed by house builders, which have generally faced challenging conditions over the last couple of years – especially felt by the medium-sized companies. Even leading house builders are cautious about their economic prospects. While Barratt revealed in their interim management statement last week that their private forward sales were up 27.4% year on year, their concluding sentences were measured: ‘Following a good start, the group remains on track to deliver profits in line with the board’s expectations for the year. However it is clear that unless we see a significant increase in the availability of mortgage finance then future growth prospects for the industry will remain constrained.’
The government’s housing strategy is the latest in a spread of measures seemingly aimed at revitalising the economy through construction. At the end of October, David Cameron highlighted the importance of infrastructure to the economy. And the National Planning Policy Framework, which has finished its consultation phase, is designed to enable more construction to get through the planning stages. The Guardian reported today that some of the UK’s largest house builders, including Barratt, Bovis and Redrow, strongly lobbied for the Framework’s ‘presumed yes’ response to development applications – a presumption that has alarmed conservationists.
For students looking for their graduate construction, quantity surveying and civil engineering jobs, however, the government’s work is potentially good news in the long term. At least the government is trying to do something to shake up the economic situation for the construction industry – something which is likely to have a positive impact on jobs eventually. Questions remain, though: will it work and how long will it take?
Source: Targetjobs.co.uk, Monday 21st November 2011
The ‘Get Britain Building’ fund aims to build up to 16,000 new homes. This is to include 3,200 affordable homes, which include rental properties owned and managed by local authorities and registered landlords.
The fund forms part of a wider government housing strategy, which also provides an additional £50 million (on top of this year’s budgeted £100 million) to help refurbish empty homes in (mostly) deprived areas to get them ready for people to use.
Another key part of the strategy is a new scheme for the government to underwrite some mortgages for new houses. The aim is to help first-time buyers, as this will reduce the deposit amount needed. As the construction industry has long lamented the unwillingness of banks to lend, this move should prove popular with house builders.
The Guardian quotes David Cameron and Nick Clegg as saying: ‘The housing market is one of the biggest victims of the credit crunch: lenders won’t lend, so builders can’t build and buyers can buy... It is doing huge damage to our economy.’ The Liberal Democrat communities minister was also quoted as saying: ‘At a time when we need to get every home back into use, tackling empty homes is a very high priority.’
The news is likely to be welcomed by house builders, which have generally faced challenging conditions over the last couple of years – especially felt by the medium-sized companies. Even leading house builders are cautious about their economic prospects. While Barratt revealed in their interim management statement last week that their private forward sales were up 27.4% year on year, their concluding sentences were measured: ‘Following a good start, the group remains on track to deliver profits in line with the board’s expectations for the year. However it is clear that unless we see a significant increase in the availability of mortgage finance then future growth prospects for the industry will remain constrained.’
The government’s housing strategy is the latest in a spread of measures seemingly aimed at revitalising the economy through construction. At the end of October, David Cameron highlighted the importance of infrastructure to the economy. And the National Planning Policy Framework, which has finished its consultation phase, is designed to enable more construction to get through the planning stages. The Guardian reported today that some of the UK’s largest house builders, including Barratt, Bovis and Redrow, strongly lobbied for the Framework’s ‘presumed yes’ response to development applications – a presumption that has alarmed conservationists.
For students looking for their graduate construction, quantity surveying and civil engineering jobs, however, the government’s work is potentially good news in the long term. At least the government is trying to do something to shake up the economic situation for the construction industry – something which is likely to have a positive impact on jobs eventually. Questions remain, though: will it work and how long will it take?
Source: Targetjobs.co.uk, Monday 21st November 2011
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