From The Scotsman:
Today’s youth not fit to be employed, says car firm Arnold Clark
MORE than 80 per cent of young Scots are “unsuitable for any employment”, according to one of the country’s biggest firms.Sir Arnold Clark is one of the wealthiest guys in Scotland.
A culture of “wholly unrealistic expectations” towards the modern workplace – including shock at the hours they are expected to put in – lies behind the decline, the training arm of motoring giant Arnold Clark has told MSPs.
A major summit is to be staged by Holyrood’s finance committee tomorrow that will see politicians and businesses join forces to try to improve the “employability” of the emerging Scottish workforce.
A report submitted in advance by Arnold Clark sets out the company’s concerns, and their findings have been backed by other business organisations.
The company said the biggest difficulty it faced was apprentices failing to adjust to a full working week, having become used to studying 18 hours a week at school or even less at further education colleges.
Many college courses were branded “state-sponsored babysitting” by Arnold Clark, which said not enough training was geared towards the world of work.
“It is desperately sad and thoroughly disheartening to hear professional recruiters with 20-plus years’ experience of employing school-leavers describe young Scots as ‘unsuitable for any employment’,” the submission said. “Yet that was the case of 81 per cent of our applicants.”...MORE
His company, Arnold Clark Automobiles, employs 8000 people and does about $3.5 Bil. in annual revenue.
...The firm had 2,280 applications for apprenticeships in 2011 – but found that 1,850 were simply not fit for the workplace....
