I simply despair the opportunities available for our young folk.
Twenty five years ago I got a part time call centre job that paid me £7.00 an hour in the evening. This supplemented my day job so I could pay my own mortgage and go out on the razzle (showing my age here) for nights out.
Now my eldest has recently left school. He is on minimum wage. I find it
entirely demoralising that somehow give or take he is roughly only 40 pence an hour better of than I was a quarter of a century ago. I was not on a senior wage at all just a typical temporary wage scale at that time when there were a lot more job opportunities and less people to fill them.
The hopes we had for his future are disappearing his friends either work in a supermarket or in a typical chain/services (call centre) type area. He has older friends who have completed university working in Macdonalds and Subway type fast food employment.
I have investigated a joinery apprenticeship for him and found out they are more difficult to find now as the smaller companies find they have to pay out to the local apprenticeship schemes and fill in a huge amount of red tape for the government with the result many of them find it's not worth the bother as the kids move on once fully trained and they are left out of pocket. Ever wondered how it is really difficult to find a tradesman?
The point I am making here (yes it has taken some time). Is that there is a huge shortage of opportunities available to our young folk nationally. And that there appears to be a homogenising of wages going on that is further eroding their dreams. I tell my son I am incredibly proud of him that he has a job. And I am. I just thought he would have been offered the same opportunities that our generation had. The horrible thing is I can only see it getting worse with increasing technology and decreasing jobs.