business

Lack of worker skills threatens European recovery

8 Comments
By LORI HINNANT and JORGE SAINZ

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8 Comments
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The teachers are very educated and well trained but I think that on many occasions they do not know how to transmit that knowledge,

Errr, maybe they're not very well trained at all then..

Jonathan Harston

employers are only prepared to employ somebody who is already working on something exactly 100% identical to the vacancy they advertise.

Very interesting. A point that I think is rarely, if ever, touched on in the job marketplace, is the often ridiculous demands of employers. I don't work in software engineering but in my line of work I've heard the ratio of applications to applications that fulfill the skills demanded in the job spec is roughly 1:20. and not because the applicants are poorly qualified but because the demands are simply stupidly unrealistic to the point where you question the intelligence and worth of the company writing the job ad.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

It's more than skills, it's the refusal of employers to actually employ people, and creating their own skills shortages. I went to university in the 1980s, I'm a software engineer/programmer, I've spent the last three years hopping from between short term contracts that takes hundreds of applications to get because employers are only prepared to employ somebody who is already working on something exactly 100% identical to the vacancy they advertise.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Don't blame the youth. The society sold us the idea that going to the university you would have a better job and a better future. And it was that way before. These days every kid has an university degree, but there are just no jobs for them. It's not the fault of young people, and it's great they work on their education. But what happens when there are no jobs for them?

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

guess time to revert to the isolationism and let Japan and Finland run the world for a while.

Hmmm... I don't think you quite understand the nature of isolationism.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

5 years ago in Ireland there were 10, 000 people waiting to get into college for apprenticeships. Now I was 1 in 14 waiting. Any other colleges offer courses useless to people and they end up unemployed after 4 years of college or university. Even though Ireland are the only European country out of recession colleges and employers are afraid to offer any real positions .

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Companies used to train their entry level recruits. Now they don't. Now they prefer to hoard their record-high profits or invest the money in China That's the real reason.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Just because you go to uni and get a degree doesn't mean you have a full set of skills to go out and get that dream job. What it means is that you were clever enough to get into uni and you studied hard. A lot of graduates seem to think that a degree is a passport to their dreams. I would rather hire someone with the eagerness to learn and a desire to do the job well over someone else who just says they have a degree.

I have a piece of paper that says I am qualified to teach English as a foreign language... but because I have no practical experience I know I can't do that particular job. Without the skills to back them up I think degrees are no better than vocational qualifications.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

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