To think businesses need to step up.

Thanks. How strange. I hope my son’s friend’s place stays open when his boss finds this out!

That is absolutely not correct. An apprentice's full time salary would be over £16k minimum - the government are not covering this !!

The government does not pay an apprentice's wages; that responsibility belongs to the employer. They pay towards the cost of apprentice training and assessments. And that is paid direct to the training provider (ie the College get paid for their one day a week day-release) but the employer still has to pay the apprentice even when they are at college for that day!

Yup, Labour seem unable to accept the entirely foreseeable "unforeseen" consequences of their actions and it's nothing new, Gordon Brown made some howlers back in his day with regards to fake self employment, IR35, tax incentives for limited companies that weren't offered to sole traders, causing the stampede of window cleaners etc to convert to limited companies. They never learn and don't understand the human behavioural aspects of their policies.

It took Dh 15 months to get a graduate job (earning £18k, which at the time was £2k more a year than all the other employees in the same role who had been there 10 years! He was astonished they were putting up with that crap for 10 years on £16k a year 🤣). This was in 2011. I don’t think this is new really. It’s certainly not because of bloody Labour. It’s not like graduates were whizzing into jobs two years ago. I know because I work in HE.

Dh spent that year in between delivering pizzas for Dominoes, picking lettuce on a farm and working at a pre-fab builder putting together A frame roofs of houses. 15 years later, he’s the director of a company with a monthly turnover of about £60k now. Everyone starts somewhere.

Absolutely we will end up with people freelancing/self employed to get work which would have previously been paid employment, with even less rights - another own goal to Labour!

There's got to be a compromise central position between not having a rights at all and where we're heading which is too many rights that puts employers off hiring.

Also, the cost/hassle/risk of "genuine" employment continues to fuel the ever increasing rise in "fake" self employment, such as delivery drivers, contractors, sales "agents", etc. that successive governments have struggled with for 30 years now!

Is it hard? A friend of my son’s has an apprenticeship and his employer, who I know slightly, says he’s delighted as the govt cover most of his salary. He isn’t a grad, he’s 18.

I mean, in america they have no workers rights and their economy is a lot more productive than ours. Since the financial crash they have recovered and we haven't, so a nurse in america can be on double (in real, purchasing power terms) what a nurse here is, it's not just the gazillionaires at the top who have benefitted. Having said that I'd hate to work in a 'fire at will' employment world, it leads to abuse by unscrupulous bosses, and other nasties.

So the question is is it better to have more chance of having any job at all, but less rights or for there to be better rights but half the population can't get a job because that my friends is the choice these days.

If reform get in they will get rid of ALL workers rights. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Not only that but anyone who takes a while to find their feet in a new job, who could be suitable with a bit of extra training will be shown the door - already where I work they are putting in 3 month reviews for new starters so that anyone not suitable is shown the door well before the 6 month deadline.
And who do we think may need a bit of training/extra time to show their capabilities? That's right, young people who are being royally shafted.

Yes and the rest of the policies already impacting youth unemployment.

Just wait until Rayner's Workers Rights Bill kicks in, in full force. Employers will be so worried about getting stuck with an unsuitable employee it will become even more of a shit show

Plus even the Conservatives raised the minimum wage from £5.51 an hour to £11.44 an hour while they were in office so clearly they also thought it was worthwhile, even with their determination to force austerity on the nation and decimate public services.

And five minutes later there will be a thread about how so many working people being on Universal Credit while working as wages have not kept up with the cost of living. Any attempt to raise salaries and employers are fucking howling.

Not to mention any surplus tax would soon be swallowed up by increased benefits bill to the unemployed..

I think the issue is that companies are making a lot more cuts and evaluating roles, which explains the first example. Maybe the job was seen as a viable offer when first made, but then got pushed back purely as the company became uncertain whether they could actually offer the position anymore.

The second example is rubbish, and you mention it being childcare. I'm a TA and one of my colleagues only found out when a job advert went out that she was being paid at the lower MTA rate for all her hours as a TA when she moved into that role, rather than the TA band. She had asked at the time of being given the TA role if the pay band was the same and had been told yes! On seeing the advert she went straight to complain and did manage to get out onto the correct band and got some back pay (but once taxed lost out and didn't apply it right from the start of her contract either!).
I think so many places want to cut costs they will do anything they can now.

I find everyone says tailor your CV, but no one shows or tells you how. I showed a bunch of social work graduates how to tailor one of their cvs to a role that was advertised and they all sat there in stunned silence.

In today's bbc story, 'Tailor your CV to the job description' was one top tip. Talk about stating the bleedin' obvious. Do graduates with masters; degrees, as this young woman is, really not know that? I was applying for hundreds of jobs - this tip helped me get one - BBC News

Also today:
Marks and Spencer is launching a new training scheme for young people trying to get on the career ladder in a bid to tackle what it called the "growing youth unemployment challenge". Aimed at 16 to 24-year olds, it will create 1,000 training places in the UK and Ireland over the next 18 months. M&S launches new traineeship for 1,000 young people - BBC News

This - I'm at that awkward stage where I really need an extra pair of hands to take on all the work I'm offered but the risk is just too high.

I am outsourcing what I can but it's not an ideal solution. I really do need a trainee/apprentice

If you are receiving UC you are expected to spend 30 odd hours a week looking for work. Also apply for numerous jobs a week. So sounds just like what people on UC are expected to do, it’s shit.
Also my DD did numerous hour and hours of unpaid work trails. Then they still couldn’t be arsed to say you didn’t get job or even give feedback!

I'm not unsympathetic - for any individual it is a rotten process - but the combination of many applicants using AI themselves and the sheer number of applicants due to the dire jobs market that it is genuinely hard to know the right way to sift through and find who is really suited.

I recently advertised an early career position. It got over 200 applicants within a week, around 80% of whom met the basic essential requirements. Because I think our applicants deserve the courtesy of a human assessing their application, I have gone through them all myself, on top of my existing full time workload. I stuck to my principle, but honestly there were points I wished I had just used an agency and/or AI screening! I can see why companies do it, which isn't something I expected to say - after all, resilience and determination are important qualities in themselves.

Your second paragraph is a disingenuous excuse, given that salaries have dropped massively in real terms since 2008. Yes the minimum wage has gone up but they are paying much less generally.

Salaries in the UK average £8000 a year less than German salaries after tax,

UK employers are greedy (and too lazy to train people).

In terms of graduate starts, they may have “over-recruited” expecting that one or more might drop out, and then when they didn’t happen, deferred the start of your DC to Jan hoping someone else will have left/they could afford the extra role. It’s a shitty practice, but in the past probably worked out quite well - now with so many looking for jobs, the turnover is more static.