I pit the cheap bastards advertising for 'Apprentices'..

The BBQ Pit
1

Just to make this clear, I’m not complaining about the people advertising for apprentices in jobs where that is a sensible, valid way of getting into a job- some of the trades, say- the sort of practical job where you take on a newbie, and gradually train them up over months, or even years, while they do a formal course on the side, and finish up in a decent, qualified position. That’s fine, it can be the best way of getting into some jobs.

What I am seriously pissed off about is the fact that the current push to encourage apprenticeships have spawned a bunch of ‘Apprentice Office Junior’, and ‘Apprentice Receptionist’ adverts. They pay around a third of minimum wage, for a year, and in exchange for that, you get to ‘study’ on the side for a qualification roughly equivalent to 1 GSCE, which most kids take 8+ of at the age of 16 at school. Oh, and they’re not even paying for the training- that’s government funded, as well as pointless.

In exhange for such a lofty qualification, which you could get free in less time as an evening course if you actually wanted to, you get to work full time for a year, for some money grabbing turds, in an entry-level position where most people could pick up the job from scratch in a week or so, for a pittance that you can’t possibly live on. Seriously, one of these I just found is operating the fucking till at the local swimming pool!

Fuck you guys for working out such a shitty way of getting round the minimum wage laws, and dressing it up as a valid plan for kids trying to get into work. And while I’m at it, fuck you for taking actual entry level jobs out of the job market, because you’re trying to trick gullible teens into doing them for cheap.

I know it’s been going on a while, but christ on a unicycle, there’s so many fucking ads for them at the moment, on legitimate job sites- they outnumber the ones that pay the actual, legal, minimum wage!

2

YES big agreement here, they finally found a way around minimum wage laws. So the goddamn taxpayers will have to shell out food stamps and housing subsidy for someone working full time for a company, out fucking rageous!

3

I assumed from the title this was about a new show or movie entitled ‘Apprentices’.

4

What’s a “GSCE”?

5

‘General Certificate of Secondary Education’- standard exams you take age 15 or 16 in most schools in the UK. Normally, it’s 1 GCSE per subject.

Coincidentially, it was just announced that they’re going to be phased out; just found that out while double checking what it stood for…

6

Well, that’s in America, I guess. The OP is in Britain, apparently. Filbert, how does taking one of these posts affect your Job Seeker’s Allowance and/or Housing Benefit? Is it enough to take you off JSA altogether? Is money clawed back from your benefit? It seems to me that you might not just be working for one third of peanuts, but actually working for nothing here.

Either way, I share the outrage (and I agree it can only be diminishing the pool of real jobs), but I would like to understand what is going on better too.

But I am sure our “Coalition” government loves this stuff.

I seem to remember reading a news story a few months ago about a girl who refused to take (or perhaps to continue with) one of these posts (basically, low level supermarket work), after the Job Centre had pushed her into it, making just the same sort of objections that Filbert does, but I do not know what the outcome was.

7

My annoyance with this term is far simpler, the word ‘apprentice’ has a specific meaning and this is being diluted over time - redefining the meaning devalues the history of that word, which certainly dates back beyond the medieval guilds.

Pumping up an unskilled activity by inflating it up to that of a skilled activity is, in effect, like putting a gun up against your intellect and blowing out your intelligence. When a whole nation blows apart its own intellect like that it is really disastrous.

Some might argue that many office workers are skilled - they are not, ‘skilled’ also has a specific meaning, along with ‘trades’.

A person who has skills is not necessarily a skilled worker, and if you find this is an odd argument then the chances are that you are not an apprentice trained tradesperson.

Does it matter? Yes it does, not only to the trades themselves, but also to those who need to make use of their services, when it has all become so diluted, how will you decide to hire, or whose advice to take, how will you understand their professional competence and from which trades organisation will you expect to find oversight?

Some jobs take time to learn, but they are not skilled. This is just feelgood factor for young people and is a total con - everybody wins a prize, except that this one is meaningless.

8

Moreover, as the OP noted, they’re taking advantage of the term’s traditional connotations of career advancement.

Traditionally, you’d serve a fixed-term apprenticeship and then become a “journeyman” or something like that, which after some additional experience (and, I think, some capital accumulation) would qualify you to become a regular guild member. Are today’s minimally-employed “apprentices” getting any kind of career-prospect advantages with their employers in exchange for their appallingly underpaid work?

Personally, I’d love it if these “apprentices” started taking the term at face value and seeking the traditional perks of apprenticeship, such as being fed and sheltered in the home of one’s employer. A half-dozen apprentices showing up at the CEO’s door with their suitcases would be a catchy news item.

That, or marrying the boss’s daughter, another traditional (although less contractual) perk of apprenticeship.

9

Please, explain the difference between someone with ‘skills’ and someone who is a ‘skilled’ worker.

It sounds like an artificial distinction to me.

10

Assuming the same apprentice/journeyman/trade system I’m used to, and am in fact climbing at the moment, the word is not “skilled” as in “good at something”, but as in “skilled trade”. A skilled worker has a specific set of practical skills, usually associated with traditional trades, from the most ancient (goldsmith/cobbler/carpenter/mason) to modern variants (electrician). It usually includes a lot of hands-on training, that someone has taken the time and investment to teach you, and which cannot, in theory, be acquired through self-study, theoretical classes or indeed, quickly. An apprenticeship is traditionally 2-4 years, depending on the trade, and you may still need training after that. Taking on an apprentice is an investment for the firm in question; apprentices may need anywhere from 1-3 years before they start earning a profit for the person hiring them. See the difference?

That said, some office-type jobs do legitimately have “apprentice” as the entry-level job around here. Most notably, you will typically start out in banking as an apprentice. Although I think the preferred term in english for these sorts of non-practical apprentice positions is “trainee”.

11

Oh, I understand how the trade system works. I just object to the snooty co-opting of the word ‘skilled’. Though not so much in your post as in casdave’s

12

We just had a summer apprentice program (paid). By a strange coincidence, all the interns had the same last names as high ranking managers. Who woulda thunk it?

It was incredibly lame. The work it took the IT group to create accounts and set rights far outweighed any benefit we got from the interns.

Some of the interns were really great. Smart, with a great work ethic. Others…not so much. Seemed like it was a way to shoot the bigwig’s kids some cash over the summer.

13

Well no, “skilled trades” (and “skilled worker” to mean “a qualified worker in skilled trades”) are professional technical terms. There may have been some “snooty co-opting” involved in the coining of those terms, but not on the part of casdave.

14

For someone who has not ‘served their time’ and does not have the trade papers, the use of the term apprentice may seem like a storm in a teacup - which in and of itself demonstrates just how much the term has been devalued.

If it seems snooty, then perhaps you do not realise the time and effort and sacrifice that goes into gaining such a professional qualification - and it is not something you can get from university studies, though there are many apprentices who have gone on to far higher levels of education.There is a huge amount of pride in being a true tradesman with apprentice skills - it implies so much more than work based skills, it also means self imposed standards, a self valuation of ones ability to operate in a particular field and to remain up to date in that field.

I shall try put this into a social perspective. When I started my trade, I had to take relatively low pay, was expected to get into the idea that you worked overtime, that the quality of the work mattered as much as the task, and also had to study at night school in my own time for at least 3 years, and given that I also took on additional training, this lasted a further 3 years. In the meantime my contemporaries went on production lines and into warehousing, or labouring in construction - they were on higher pay than I was but that’s where they peaked.

So whilst I was at night school, they were out on the tiles - at weekends they had cars and could also afford to go out Friday and Saturday nights, for me it was a rarer thing to do, and for a young man its not easy watching this and studying - as an apprentice you have to pay your dues.

Even so, a fully competent skilled technician such as myself would expect to be classed as only partly trained until I could be left completely alone and unsupervised and trusted to carry out my work to a professional standard without incident, and in my field this would mean you’d be around 26 year old minimum, and up to around 33-34 depending upon the particular industry.

I am qualified to a level that allows me to register with a number of professional bodies, from the IEEE, through to other fields such as IfL (which is a teaching/training organisation) through to IOSH - the Safety professional’s body.

Not all apprentice trained trades workers can achieve my level, not all wish to do so, it has taken several decades and several career changes to do this, but one thing that any professional tradesperson has, is a certain type of self driven standard. I also teach trades to others, and this is an outlook I attempt to inculcate into others, though perhaps not with my current charges.

You may see shows on TV about ‘rogue traders’, these are the very antithesis of what myself and those like me are about - you are extremely unlikely to appreciate the quality of my work, because you are not in my field - but I would never use your lack of knowledge as an excuse to lower my standards.

You can wire a plug, but I will do it to a far higher standard, you can probably install some household electrics, but again I will do it to a far higher standard and be able to specify it correctly so that it will not burst into flames when a serious fault occurs, you would not be able to take apart high power switchgear, nor any amount of other heavy duty plant, and could you work on the instrumentation?

I had to learn a great deal of that on my own volition - undertaking your apprenticeship is merely the start of learning, you have to keep up to date without an external prompt - this is why I object when idiots in power try to devalue the term ‘apprentice’.

Virtually every apprentice tradesperson has an affinity for their work in a way that workers with skills do not, joiners literally love working with wood, it is their passion, chefs have a passion for their work, engineers actually enjoy the feel and handling of metals, it may seem nerdy to you, but being an apprentice trained person is not just a job.

This is why a person with skills can never be the same as a ‘skilled tradesperson’ the love is not there, the self motivation is not there, the commitment is not there and I make no apology for looking down on others who pretend - they are wannabees who try the short and easy way.

I aspire to higher standards all the time in my work, its not just a job - I can walk past a place where I have installed and commissioned equipment and it means something to me.

An apprentice teaboy is just not the same.

15

from Sicks ate

You cannot imagine the irony of your use of the word ‘artificial’.

This is rooted in the word ‘artifice’ from whence the old word apprentice arises - ‘artificer’.

This word was used to describe something that was finely crafted ‘artificial’ now means something different, but for example, St Paul’s cathedral was once described as,

‘Artificial and aweful’ meaning it was finely and well crafted and awe inspiring, rather than tinny, plasticky and terrible.

You are unlikely to be in awe of a person who can use a word processor - but you might be impressed just a little with the National Grid electrical distribution system or how about the instrumentation of a power station?

Do not mistake the development of a skill, with that of a ‘skilled person’

16

Ah, I see. Only ‘skilled tradespeople’ can possibly love their work, and only ‘skilled tradespeople’ can do work that actually matters.

Got it. Glad you’re happy and proud of the career path you’ve chosen.

17

Yeah, that’s right, say what I didn’t say.

As for ‘chosen path’, when you’ve done a true apprenticeship and served your time, then maybe you can come back to me and compare notes, until then you have little to say.

Lots of people possess skills, but in this context it does not mean they are skilled workers. This is about apprenticeships and the misuse of the term, and in this context the use of the word ‘skilled’ takes on a certain meaning. If you have not done an apprenticeship then you are not skilled in a trade, this is what an apprenticeship confers to the holder.

18

I understand the distinction you are making, but if you are trying to maintain a functional difference between phrases like “skilled worker” and “person with skills”, you’re pretty much doomed to failure.

The commonly used definition of “skill” is going to win out.

19

Cash? At least they got some cash.

In some American workplaces now, “interns” are doing the same sort of thing as the “apprentices” described by the OP: essentially allowing companies to get cheap or free labor in return for very little real experience or chance at advancement or future employment. In areas like publishing, interns are brought in to do grunt work, and allegedly to get experience in the industry, but these places sometimes bring in far more interns than ever have hopes of getting a job, and in many cases they don’t really give them the opportunity to do the sort of work that would make them potential employment candidates anyway.

And they’re generally not paid at all.

20

Yeah, I think a phrase like “qualified skilled-trades worker” has a better chance of survival as a specific technical term.

And in industries where an unpaid internship does provide valuable experience enhancing career prospects, it stacks up on average as simply another advantage for the children of the well-to-do, whose families can afford to support them while they give away their time and labor for free.