"Graphista excellent post" thank you 
"Oh and the people whose problems I sort are all younger - mostly much younger - than me."
Doesn't surprise me. My dd (almost 18) despite doing 3 different IT based subjects at school (supposedly - wtf they were teaching them I don't know! One was called something like 'business IT' even but massively missed the basics!) had no clue how to use excel, nor databases, nor even word processing software properly (she could type obviously but formatting, adding or removing any graphics or even simple text boxes were beyond her!) when she left school. I taught her some (though it was challenging as she struggled to accept I knew what I was talking about and I must admit I got frustrated and impatient, not with her but that she hadn't been taught even basics).
She's now been working in an admin based role for over a year and is much better but she's commented that her boss/trainer has commented also that her generation isn't/hasn't been taught IT skills that are actually bloody useful!
Instead they've been taught things like higher level graphics skills, video creation etc that they'll rarely use! It's ridiculous! They should be getting taught/trained on the basics of msoffice and similar that they'll actually use and where the skills are transferable to similar software. That's not the fault of the younger folk, that's a failure in the curriculum.
"A university education is needed for a higher number of jobs" that may be true to a degree (no pun intended) but it's also because some employers are asking for qualifications that REALLY aren't necessary for the role needing filled. This happens when it's an employers market, employers get fussier - I suspect partly to reduce high numbers of applications.
I mistakenly thought I was ready to return to work in 2017 (mh & mobility issues but oddly when I'm doing better mh wise I can get OVER optimistic too) so I was job hunting and looking at LOTS of job ads, dd was also looking around the same time.
The number of ENTRY LEVEL ads where the job was low paid where the employer was demanding the most RIDICULOUS minimum requirements!
A-levels for checkout staff
MINIMUM 5 years experience with proof of exceeding targets for sales staff
Nursery workers expected to have MINIMUM PROVABLE 5 years childcare experience
Office JUNIORS being expected to have hnc or even hnd admin qualifications MINIMUM
And that's before you get into the stupid "must be flexible" - in other words "available whenever we need you at a moments notice" regardless of the fact you're a human being with a life!
Workers rights have been seriously eroded and continue to be but why (as a country) are we accepting this? That you need to work somewhere for 2 YEARS before you get anything but the minimum workers rights is appalling! And o hate to drop the "b" bomb but brexit IS going to make this worse, no way do I trust the tories to protect workers especially low paid, low skilled ones. They never have.
My mum noted this happening about 5/10 years before she retired as recruitment was part of her role, she said she found it embarrassing having to act as if it was completely acceptable to reject a perfectly GOOD (not even acceptable) candidate for checkout supervisor roles because they didn't have A-levels! She felt it was actually leading them to recruit LESS able candidates but who had the paper qualifications. (And then her AND their subordinates ended up carrying them!)
Pettycontractor, that may have been true in the past I really don't think it's true with tech advances.
Look at self service tills, they have and are replacing a lot of checkout staff, automation in factories has long been an issue of reducing jobs available. Certainly employers have no interest in paying employees and giving them rights if they don't have to, employees are again (after decades of us trying to get away from this) increasingly being treated as only having worth in relation to how much money they can make for the boss/owner.
Those Luddites are looking less daft by the minute. Unfortunately it seems a few may be working at mn at the moment.