DS wants to turn down job

[MrsCD67]

DS(18) has managed to secure an apprenticeship with an insurance company which will pay him around £4.50 an hour.
He will have to work at least 40 hours a week up to around 44 in some weeks.
My son thinks that this is absurd and he no longer wants this job as the pay is low and the hours are long.
I've told him he should still go for it as the hours are fairly standard and it'd be good experience.
Does anyone else think that 40+ hours a week is quite a lot for an unqualified apprentice?

@ShotsFired

I think you need to get real. Why on earth would you take a job paying £4.50 an hour if it has no future prospects and provides no valuable qualification? You can get double that working at Tesco.

Well it's a reasonable worry.

What would the qualification be, and what would he do if he didn't take this?

My children are at school for much longer hours and they are under 13. 40 hours for a strong young hnemcumbered person is a breeze.
I would be less worried about the hours and more worried about the absence of motivation and drive.

This is an oportunity and unless he has employees queuing for his expertise I would strongly suggest he takes it and gives it his best shot. If he doesn’t lIke it he can work whilst finding something else.

Unemcumbered

Tell him if he goes to collage full time he will get paid nowt and he will have to them find a weekend job

So what he’s saying make no sense

My son currently earns £400 a month however he works 2.5 days a week and attends coallage full time

If he did a traineeships he would be at coallge one day a week work 4 and now weekend job

@Metoodear

That's a terrible attitude. A college course could actually be useful in terms of getting a good job after. This 'apprenticeship' could just be cheap labour with no future prospects at all.

I think it really depends on the qualification he will get at the end of it. If he is going into the underwriting, actuarial or accounting departments and will have a relevant qualification to one of these then he should absolutely go for it. They are areas that are always in demand, pay well and are not easy to get into. The qualifications are expensive if he chose to do them himself and he'd have to invest a lot of his own time studying for them.

If it's going into the contact centre of an insurance company then I'd probably pass because he could earn more working there not on the apprenticeship and the end qualification may not be worth all that much.

I'd be worried about his motivation if he's already considering turning it down based on what is pretty much a normal working week. What does he think working full time actually involves?

I mean no weekend job

It also depends on what level and what traineeship

My son would be looking at 500pm month year 1 but year 2hw would be looking at 13k a year but he’s training to be be engineer

For info, there is an Apprenticeships board under Education.

My DD is doing a nursery apprenticeship £4 / hr, 40 hour week. But after 1 year it will go up to the NMW, she is getting hands on experience, time (10%) to do qualification during work hours, and will come out with the required qualification to work with children.

Compared with friends at university she is getting paid to train and will finish 18 months with savings rather than debt. And she can afford to run a car too.

I would say that whether what your son is being offered is worth it depends on a) what qualification he will gain and b) what doors the qualification and/or experience will open for him.

CalF123

Well it depends most trade subjects it’s much better to get a traineeships than go to college you learn much more

My son is doing engineering and they were all told the goal is to finish your last year in a traineeship

Most trades sparkeys brick layers ect will pay shit to start but once you trained it’s unlikely you won’t get kept of and then the money is really good

The apprenticeship is for insurance sales which I suppose could lead on to more but his lack of motivation currently does not fill me with confidence at the prospect of him wanting to achieve more in this field.
His alternative thought (he has just informed me) was to go into an apprenticeship in an estate agency although I'm not sure about the longevity in that industry as it's all online nowadays. He has found a position which would involve working 6 days a week (again around 40 hours) for £5 which to me does sound a lot better overall!

So it's effectively being paid £4.50 an hour to work in a call centre doing a fake qualification with no future prospects. I'd be steering him well clear of that.

The estate agency one does sound much better, and will have much better future prospects.

What will the actual qualification be? How long will he have to work those hours/for that pay in order to get it? What are his prospects once he has the qualification?

I think he needs to consider those questions before deciding whether taking or leaving the job is reasonable or not..

I work for a large insurance company who take on apprentices. I assume he'll be studying towards the Cii? Apprentices at our place generally end up working across several departments (claims, underwriting, fraud etc..) and have ended up in quite good, we'll paid positions. It depends what he wants to get out of it and if he's willing to put the grunt work in to get somewhere better.

Can he not do something at coallge this really doesn’t sound like he’s excited about

Dose he currently work

I presume he'll be doing his CII? Is it personal or commercial insurance OP?

Sales in insurance can be anything from a call centre to a development underwriter/business development role.

Tbh once he's CII qualified he'll have a fair amount of scope earning a decent salary at an insurance co or brokerage.

I work in digital marketing and e-commerce so this online thing is right up my street. However OP. Don't let the fact that everything going online be a reason to not accept this. Yes, people expect everything online but... They also expect to be able to phone a real person, visit a shop, etc. The future isn't online only, it's multi-channel.

It sounds like this would be way more interesting! I'd be encouraging him this way for sure.

This actually makes me really angry, it’s a junior sales job, he’s not being funded to achieve an actual qualification and get day release to college like with a traditional apprenticeship. It seems more like a greedy company taking advantage and using the word apprenticeship to get their admin/grunt work done without actually having to pay the legal minimum wage. I wouldn’t work for such a pittance, I wouldn’t encourage anyone I know to do so either.

Why doesn’t he look at going to work at a supermarket? It’s not slave labour and if he’s any good at it he can look at management training on the job.

@CalF123 I think you need to get real. Why on earth would you take a job paying £4.50 an hour if it has no future prospects

What? Of course it has future prospects! It's insurance. You can make a bloody mint working in the industry, and it opens up loads of other avenues and industries as well.

And given actual apprenticeships are pretty thin on the ground, then it's a great opportunity to get 'in' with a decent company.

(That said, a proper career in retail can also be a strong bet - IF you plan to progress up beyond the shopfloor ranks into management/head office functions.)

OP, what is the job spec? I agree with other pp that if apprenticeships are just a form of cheap labour with no prospects, then it is a con. However, depending on what the role is, insurers or insurance brokers can offer good prospects for school leavers with a bit of verve & hard work. Lots of people work there way up & end up earning good salaries.

Troubled I think there will have to be an actual qualification, just the OP isn't sure what it is!

It could be something like "Level 3 in Customer Service" or a CII as mentioned by a PP. It will make a big difference.

My son did an engineering apprenticeship earning £2.65 per hour for the first 18 months then it went to £5.40. It was low pay and long hours but the experience he gained helped land him a very well paid job working in London at 21. His friends are still here in our quiet, poor northern town with no prospects because they refused to work for such low pay at first. Hard work and dedication will be rewarded, if not he can move on with experience in the field.

@ShotsFired

It's not insurance, it's working in a call centre. Whether you're selling insurance or bras, it's still working in a call centre, which doesn't require an apprenticeship so should be paid as the proper job it is.

To draw down the apprenticeship levy there has to be a defined qualification at the end of it. But there is a lot of sharp practice on the fringes of these and IMO many of the qualifications aren’t very useful or transferable, so check thoroughly with the college as well as the prospective employer.

Good point Teen, I’m especially thinking of a neighbour’s DD who took an apprenticeship in an office, essentially as an office junior/receptionist, she did get some shitty certificate but found it didn’t open any doors whatsoever and that she was essentially used as slave labour. A good litmus test is, do you actually need that qualification to do the job you’re supposedly training to do. For instance I’ve been an EA in an investment bank, none of us have certificates in office admin.

I agree a relevant CII qualification and a proper road map to become an insurance broker would be worth considering, only if the OP’s son is actually interested though. There’s no point in work for a pittance if you ultimately have no interest in that field.