Here’s how the unemployment trap works

[onq]

Many posters on AAM may not be aware of the reality of life for unemployed building professionals and other skilled people and the difficulties they face in trying becoming gainfully employed.
Here are some excerpts from an article from the Journal on the problems facing those who actually want to become employed again.
I am quite able to type a thousand words before lunch, but the writer of this article, Róisín Nic Dhonnacha, did it better.

From:

http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/column-here%E2%80%99s-how-the-unemployment-trap-works/

=======================================================

"...AS FINANCIAL PRESSURE increases on everyone, a troubling and increasing amount of vitriol is being directed at those who find themselves unemployed. Some consider unemployment a ‘lifestyle option’ in agreement with [broken link removed], others a ‘soul-destroying existence’ as expressed in [broken link removed].....

...Training needs to support career development, not be quick drastic change to chase a job, any job...

Overqualified, AKA too expensive

...This then brings up the issue of hiring someone with a huge amount of experience, education and training into a position reporting to someone who has a significantly lesser profile. No one is going to do that...

...no manager is going to hire someone who can run rings around them and ultimately show up their lack of capability....

...The rationale employers give is that ‘overqualified’ candidates will move to another job – which is short sighted considering how few roles are actually out there...

If no one else has hired you…

...There is a real argument that companies who engage interns should pay them at least a basic stipend in line with their qualifications and that there should be real potential for a real job at the end of the internship.

...Such companies’ rhetoric is that they are doing their bit to help the unemployed and Ireland as a country, part of their ‘corporate social responsibility plan’. No it isn’t, and no they are not. They are making profit off the backs of free educated, experienced, trained and able workers without having to pay them....

How safe is your job?

This is endorsed by the government and frankly only just falls short of forced labour. Which is illegal....

...‘The system’ has not adequately adapted to the huge shift from unskilled, uneducated unemployed people to a majority of skilled, trained, educated and experienced unemployed people..."

=======================================================

The article is worth reading for the overview it gives of its central theme -

The dole queues are no longer populated by poorly educated people with no interest in working.
The entire social demographic of this country is well represented from unemployed professionals to ex-millionaires.
About the only sub-group you won't see clustering around a hatch in their pin striped suits are the bankers who got us into this mess.

This is the reality seasoned and highly skilled professionals face today.
In 2010, I met an architect of twenty years standing who applied for a position.
The job description required someone with experience at designing healthcare facilities.

My colleague was refused the job.
Despite him having previously done award winning work on airports.
Because it didn't say "airport designer acceptable" on the job descriptor.
Any architect with formal training is competent to formulate the brief and design ANY building.
Talent like that was thrown on the scrapheap because a middle manager writes a job descriptor about a profession he knows nothing about.

During the Fetac Level 6 major award course in management I completed recently one of our lecturers addressed us and said - "..you guys don't realize what you bring to the table..."
He was used to trying to bring on groups with mixed ability and he was facing ten people, most of whom had third level education to professional level.
The problem with finding employment in this country is that most potential employers don't know what we bring to the table either.

And we have a social welfare system and an educational system that hasn't a clue how to deal with us.

 

[JoeB]

And so what's your point?

There is a free market as regards labour,.. so wages can go up and down according to demand. If there is no demand in certain industries then unfortunately people can't find jobs.

This was probably always a problem on a smaller scale. Entire industries died out,.. for example, iron workers shoeing horses, or barrel makers for Guinness, or maybe the textile industry in Donegal. Time moves on, and skills become unwanted or un-neccesary.

While obviously it's hard on the dole,.. if there are too many architects, or other construction related professionals, and no-one to employ them, and no entreprenurial opportunities for them,.. well, then they must look for other work, or perhaps emigrate.

While having a healthy high view of your own skills is important it must be recognised that a person skills are in a particular area... so if there is no architechture work available, then that's it for architects... I can't see what the government can do, other than try to provide an environment in which new construction and architecture projects can flourish. But builing things we don't need in order to keep people employed doesn't seem to make sense.


So the situation hasn't fundementally changed, .. there was always a competative jobs market, in which people had to gain the skills they felt would get them ahead, and then they had to compete for jobs. It's just there's less jobs now, but there are still new and expanding industries for people who's industries have contracted or collasped.


I think that people don't deny the problem, and the problem is understood to a large degree,.. it's the solution that is causing difficulty.

Personally I think the Social Welfare system creates an artificial floor on lifestyle, and that that may be the crux of our problem, we have become a welfare state, where little or no responsibility is taken for personal choices, and many people see the state as only existing in order to give them money, services and benefits.


I think our governence has been atrocious.. a good example being the oil and gas fields we gave away. The Norwegians rate our performance as regards our oil and gas as less than 3 or 4 out of ten.. the guy didn't want to answer the question as the answer was so embarrasing to the Irish. So poor and incompetent governence is a problem, but we keep voting the fools in, .. so perhaps it's democracy that doesn't work.

 

[onq]

Joe, thank you for replying.

However, you spent 80% of your post denying there was a problem and didn't even consider the points I raised, then went off topic to address the government mis-handling of our natural resources.

That's part of the problem, as I see it.

The current situation is so far out of most people's competence they cannot even address it in a discussion, instead falling back on free market mantras which are part of the reason our indigenous industries are being destroyed by globalization.

Believe me when the market here is flooded with middle managers and manufacturers from India and China undercutting them on everything they produce, then they'll see, but like the boy who cried "Wolf!" it'll be too late for them to do anything.

• People with few competences don't appreciate the effort it takes to acquire them.
• People who type Jobseekers as work-shy twenty somethings are pushing their own political agenda.
• People who fail to support indigenous professionals will see our population denuded of them in short order.
• People who say - "go and find work somewhere else" - forget the fact there are no jobs out there to go to - globally!
• People who say - "you'll just have to retrain won't you" - forget the cost of training in terms of both money and time and ignore the skills already acquired.

All that is a given.

This short term glut in the professions is not the issue.
You have touched on the emerging industries in which new job opportunities can be found.
What is not being addressed is how to re-train competent professionals to operate at a senior level in those industries,
That is, as opposed to leaving them compete with someone who has just finished his leaving for the dish-washing job in the local hotel.

(I happen to be a very competent dishwasher AS WELL BTW having been a dishwasher and a Kitchen Porter in a hotel in my teens ).

Which brings us back to the article in question.
Most people who do a degree and then go on to work professionally ealize that its only AFTER you qualify that you start learning how to employ your knowledge.
They also realize pretty swiftly that they are using only a fraction of the knowledge they learned about in their college course.
Within a short time after that they find they have a new learning curve for changes in the industry.
Ten years after qualification new regulations means its "all change" at a basic level.

The point I'm making is that competent professionals that keep their skillsets sharp have to do this constantly.
Once the basic body of knowledge has been mastered, its their years of experience that allow then to operate at senior level.
Those years of experience will translate into any workplace or industry, but they have to be thought at a level commensurate with the previous position.

Bluebrick.ie and Springboard offer a useful level of support for people with degrees that allow them to embrace new competences and qualifications in just such a situation.
The problem with such courses is that they are offered to people on Jobseekers only, as opposed to those people who are already showing their ""get up and go" and are on a back to work scheme.
During the management course I was recently on a new initiative was supposed to offer placements for "work experience" to graduates of the course - nothing you could live on and even that course died a death.

We are not seeing joined up thinking in the way the government are addressing the needs of competent people in the current economic crisis.
We are seeing prejudice against employing hugely competent people by middle managers whose sole raison d'etre seems to be covering their backs.
As long as we have the jobs market riddled with self-contradictory job descriptions and interviews run by fearful middle managers, we're in a race to the bottom.

And we're wasting our best talent.

 

[Purple]

The current situation is so far out of most people's competence they cannot even address it in a discussion, instead falling back on free market mantras which are part of the reason our indigenous industries are being destroyed by globalization.

Our indigenous industries only exist because of globalisation.

Believe me when the market here is flooded with middle managers and manufacturers from India and China undercutting them on everything they produce, then they'll see, but like the boy who cried "Wolf!" it'll be too late for them to do anything.

That’s the great thing about global capital; it has no biases or bigotry, it simply moves to where it can get the best return. Therefore if in the future our businesses are run by Indians or Chinese then so be it. Why shouldn’t they have the same opportunities we have? It is not right for us to stay rich by keeping others poor.

• People with few competences don't appreciate the effort it takes to acquire them.
• People who type Jobseekers as work-shy twenty somethings are pushing their own political agenda.
• People who fail to support indigenous professionals will see our population denuded of them in short order.
• People who say - "go and find work somewhere else" - forget the fact there are no jobs out there to go to - globally!
• People who say - "you'll just have to retrain won't you" - forget the cost of training in terms of both money and time and ignore the skills already acquired.

All that is a given.

This short term glut in the professions is not the issue.
You have touched on the emerging industries in which new job opportunities can be found.
What is not being addressed is how to re-train competent professionals to operate at a senior level in those industries,
That is, as opposed to leaving them compete with someone who has just finished his leaving for the dish-washing job in the local hotel.

So what’s the solution? “They should do something about it” is not a plan.

Which brings us back to the article in question.
Most people who do a degree and then go on to work professionally ealize that its only AFTER you qualify that you start learning how to employ your knowledge.
They also realize pretty swiftly that they are using only a fraction of the knowledge they learned about in their college course.
Within a short time after that they find they have a new learning curve for changes in the industry.
Ten years after qualification new regulations means its "all change" at a basic level.

The point I'm making is that competent professionals that keep their skillsets sharp have to do this constantly.
Once the basic body of knowledge has been mastered, its their years of experience that allow then to operate at senior level.

That applies to any skilled job and any skill set acquired in an academic setting.

Those years of experience will translate into any workplace or industry, but they have to be thought at a level commensurate with the previous position.

That’s just plain wrong and it doesn’t matter how often you say it or in how many different ways. A persons wage is based on the value they have to their employer. I agree that not all employers see the true value of many of their employees but that’s a different point.

We are not seeing joined up thinking in the way the government are addressing the needs of competent people in the current economic crisis.
We are seeing prejudice against employing hugely competent people by middle managers whose sole raison d'etre seems to be covering their backs.
As long as we have the jobs market riddled with self-contradictory job descriptions and interviews run by fearful middle managers, we're in a race to the bottom.

And we're wasting our best talent.

Fearful middle managers may be a problem some of the time but no employer is going to take someone on in a position of responsibility and/or skill who they think will leave the first opportunity they get. They is particularly the case in small businesses. The cost of training someone into their post is simply too high. Glib comments from a journalist to the contrary doesn’t change that.

 

[orka]

I agree with Purple and Joe B that it’s a question of supply and demand – and if the boom years means we have ended up with 2,000 qualified architects when we only have work for 1,000, then there’s only work for 1,000 – we can’t make work and/or artificially prop up wage rates or fees – even if it’s in the hope of a longer term pickup which might provide employment for more than 1,000.

I also don’t understand your rationale about experience vs training. On the one hand you say that it’s the years of experience that are important.

Most people who do a degree and then go on to work professionally ealize that its only AFTER you qualify that you start learning how to employ your knowledge.

They also realize pretty swiftly that they are using only a fraction of the knowledge they learned about in their college course. ...
Once the basic body of knowledge has been mastered, its their years of experience that allow then to operate at senior level.
Those years of experience will translate into any workplace or industry,

But then you give the example of the architect you met:

In 2010, I met an architect of twenty years standing who applied for a position.

The job description required someone with experience at designing healthcare facilities.

My colleague was refused the job.
Despite him having previously done award winning work on airports.
Because it didn't say "airport designer acceptable" on the job descriptor.
Any architect with formal training is competent to formulate the brief and design ANY building.

So if any formally trained architect can design any building, what does experience bring? If I was finding someone for the job, I would prefer someone with experience of designing healthcare facilities than an award-winning airport architect. Someone who has designed 20 healthcare facilities will have seen many of them completed, got client feedback on what worked, what could be changed/bettered etc. – and they would be different issues than airport issues.

 

[Mpsox]

Many posters on AAM may not be aware of the reality of life for unemployed building professionals and other skilled people and the difficulties they face in trying becoming gainfully employed.
Here are some excerpts from an article from the Journal on the problems facing those who actually want to become employed again.
I am quite able to type a thousand words before lunch, but the writer of this article, Róisín Nic Dhonnacha, did it better.

From:

http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/column-here’s-how-the-unemployment-trap-works/

=======================================================

"...AS FINANCIAL PRESSURE increases on everyone, a troubling and increasing amount of vitriol is being directed at those who find themselves unemployed. Some consider unemployment a ‘lifestyle option’ in agreement with [broken link removed], others a ‘soul-destroying existence’ as expressed in [broken link removed].....

...Training needs to support career development, not be quick drastic change to chase a job, any job...

=======================================================

The article is worth reading for the overview it gives of its central theme -

The dole queues are no longer populated by poorly educated people with no interest in working.
The entire social demographic of this country is well represented from unemployed professionals to ex-millionaires.
About the only sub-group you won't see clustering around a hatch in their pin striped suits are the bankers who got us into this mess.

This is the reality seasoned and highly skilled professionals face today.
In 2010, I met an architect of twenty years standing who applied for a position.
The job description required someone with experience at designing healthcare facilities.

My colleague was refused the job.
Despite him having previously done award winning work on airports.
Because it didn't say "airport designer acceptable" on the job descriptor.
Any architect with formal training is competent to formulate the brief and design ANY building.
Talent like that was thrown on the scrapheap because a middle manager writes a job descriptor about a profession he knows nothing about.

During the Fetac Level 6 major award course in management I completed recently one of our lecturers addressed us and said - "..you guys don't realize what you bring to the table..."
He was used to trying to bring on groups with mixed ability and he was facing ten people, most of whom had third level education to professional level.
The problem with finding employment in this country is that most potential employers don't know what we bring to the table either.

And we have a social welfare system and an educational system that hasn't a clue how to deal with us.

There was an interesting discussion about training and courses on the radio on Satruday. One guy from the Computer Games industry was encouraging architects to work at being retrained in his industry because their CAD designs can be applied to the design of games.

Problem for architects in the majority of them are trained in a field we don't need any more. Therefore they either need to get retrained into something else, accept they'll never work again or leave and work overseas. Same applies for a lot of other professionals.

 

[Maximus152]

What’s your point, it’s a free market, Supply and demand will always determine who and when they are needed, not if you or anyone else thinks they are more competent for a certain role. No one is ever indispensible in a job, if they think they are its a fool’s paradise. Even if you think you do wonderful work and are quiet brilliant...economies and free markets decide, the answer as always is to be multi-skilled or multi-disciplined from what I see, that’s one way to ride the rapids
Maximus

 

[onq]

There was an interesting discussion about training and courses on the radio on Satruday. One guy from the Computer Games industry was encouraging architects to work at being retrained in his industry because their CAD designs can be applied to the design of games.

Problem for architects in the majority of them are trained in a field we don't need any more. Therefore they either need to get retrained into something else, accept they'll never work again or leave and work overseas. Same applies for a lot of other professionals.

It takes a minimum of 7 years to achieve your Part III's and another two or three years to develop a broad range of competences, so any profession is not something you can skip into or out of.
That having been said, I think the underlying suggestion above, that people with 3D design skills could usefully transfer to a gaming environment is worth pursuing - I shall pass it on - thanks.
Your other comment about leaving and working overseas is also very relevant, and I think in this connected digital age its possible to stay here and still engage with work overseas.

 

[Purple]

It takes a minimum of 7 years to achieve your Part III's and another two or three years to develop a broad range of competences, so any profession is not something you can skip into or out of.

We employ skilled machinists, usually qualified Toolmakers. It takes a minimum of 10 years to get to a level of competence that would have corresponded with what used to be called a Master Craftsman. My point is that your point above applies to any skilled job.

 

[Latrade]

The collapse of the building industry has affected lots of trades and professions and not just architects. Unfortunately (or fortunately given the overall damage done to economies on the back of it) that industry has gone and will never come back to the extent it was.

It's not that I don't sympathise with people, but there was a huge focus on 3rd level education riding on the coat tails of construction and as a result we've fallen behind on being able to have a knowledge base to compete in the new industries.

We needed scientists, engineers (computer, electronic and mechanical not civil), etc. Instead we got solicitors, architects, golf course designers and hotel managers.

Add to that the swelling of adminstrative roles within organisations that are now being (rightly) rationalised and we further created new professions that were essentially very specialised administrative officers.

It's not easy and it's unfortunate, but there is no unemployment trap only people refusing to accept that the demand froth for their chosen profession has been skimmed and there's an over supply.

The unemployment trap is that some of these people feel it is their right to walk into an equal position to one they had a few years ago. Sorry but that world has gone.

What needs to be done is breaking down the skills they do have and seeing how that can apply to other positions, maybe even lower level positions. CAD is one, there are numerous areas where CAD experience is essential. But then also looking at what other training can be done in order to develop that experience further.

It's the same with some businesses, you can't hope the world will suddenly change and go back to how it was just to keep buying your product or services either you adapt or you close up shop.

However, I do feel that there is an element of work the government can do to help on this. It must know what foriegn investment we're chasing and what long term vision it has for this and so it should be looking at how it can help close that skills gap between those unemployed professions and what the investors want.

Surely being able to advertise how it is upskilling and making available more labour and knowledge to that market will help attract the investors. The less upskilling they have to do themselves, the more attractive the market.

But I don't see that I see a similar denial and that we can just get on our knees and the multinational manufacturing base will stay.

 

[onq]

We employ skilled machinists, usually qualified Toolmakers. It takes a minimum of 10 years to get to a level of competence that would have corresponded with what used to be called a Master Craftsman. My point is that your point above applies to any skilled job.

Your comparison of a skilled trade and a profession suits your argument but doesn't stand up to review.

For a degree in architecture you have to complete your Leaving Certificate then complete a five year course to obtain your Part II's (usually with a year out to get experience in an office after third year), then a minimum of two years working under the supervision of a member of the Institute (and sometimes four depending on the quality and complexity of the work) plus an assessment and a further exam to get your Part III's after which you start developing competence "on your own".

You will be twenty six to twenty nine by that time, assuming you did your Leaving Certificate at eighteen.

A trade usually requires an Junior Certificate and then three to four years - you will be nineteen or twenty by that time.

There is a decade in the difference, with all that this implies in terms of earning potential over the career of the person.

The minimum 2 years after architect's Part II qualification are required to attain the Part III's.
You can then undertake further study to attain a Master's or a Doctorate in Architecture. Another one or two years.

A Machinist is fully qualified after his three to four year course.
I am not aware what further training is required to attain a Master Machinist certificate or where such a Masters is accredited - happy to learn about it if such is the case.

 

[onq]

The collapse of the building industry has affected lots of trades and professions and not just architects. Unfortunately (or fortunately given the overall damage done to economies on the back of it) that industry has gone and will never come back to the extent it was.

It's not that I don't sympathise with people, but there was a huge focus on 3rd level education riding on the coat tails of construction and as a result we've fallen behind on being able to have a knowledge base to compete in the new industries.

We needed scientists, engineers (computer, electronic and mechanical not civil), etc. Instead we got solicitors, architects, golf course designers and hotel managers.

Add to that the swelling of adminstrative roles within organisations that are now being (rightly) rationalised and we further created new professions that were essentially very specialised administrative officers.

It's not easy and it's unfortunate, but there is no unemployment trap only people refusing to accept that the demand froth for their chosen profession has been skimmed and there's an over supply.

The unemployment trap is that some of these people feel it is their right to walk into an equal position to one they had a few years ago. Sorry but that world has gone.

That is not the case - read the article before commenting LAtrade.

The trap is that vastly experienced people are available for work having already upskilled or retrained, but are being discounted as candidates because of office politics by their less well qualified and less experienced interviewers/ employers.

Of course, this possibly goes all the way up the line to the captains of industry themselves, many of whom are good businessmen but haven't any qualifications at running a business having learn by the seat of their pants what measures to take, what corners to cut and what soundbites to use in place of logical argument and how to distort arguments or ignore them to make a point.

But let's take your suggestion online and people now in third level or competent professionals who are retraining decide to commit to these professions and skills you suggest are necessary.
Many are honours degree courses taking four years - what happens when they come our of university with a degree under their belt to be told that the industry has no need for them?

The way this country and the world is being mis-managed under capitalism is storing up a huge well of resentment amongst the lower 80% of the population.
Its clear some management strategies need to be applied economically, because the boom and bust cycles, the surplus and shortages, is not how a well run system should be managed.
Its how an uninformed population allows themselves to be manipulated by people promoting a "light regulation" agenda, who use these booms and busts to make vast profits and extract wealth from the economy.

But thankfully there are other approaches and other measures of success.

 

[Staples]

We needed scientists, engineers (computer, electronic and mechanical not civil), etc. Instead we got solicitors, architects, golf course designers and hotel managers.

That's at the heart of it.

Regretably, some skills are effectively redundant (or alt least in much less demand). You can speak at length about how unfair this is but it really doesn't alter the reality.

Education is an investment which, like any other, doesn't guarantee any particular outcome. Third level qualifications don't guarantee a sustainable income over a working life. More than ever, there is, and will continue to be, a need for workers to procatively adapt their skills to shifting industry demands. The challenge for Government is to provide the means by which they can do so.

While the construction industry may well improve, it will never return to the level it was at during the boom. The game has changed and we would do well to acknowledge this and deal with the consequences.

 

[Staples]

The trap is that vastly experienced people are available for work having already upskilled or retrained, but are being discounted as candidates because of office politics by their less well qualified and less experienced interviewers/ employers.

You seem to think that a company's role when it comes to recruitment is to go to all possible lengths to understand the skills of all potential candidates.

This is unrealistic. The measure of any succesful recruitment is the extent to which the person selected susbsequently works effectively in the role to which they were recruited. If that means that other potentially worthy candidates get overlooked, so be it. Recruitment is an inexact process. Companies won't spend time or money seeking the best possible candidate if they can get a good enough one fairly quickly.

In my experience, many professional jobseekers (particularly younger ones) still seem to think that their value should be automatically recognised and that their status is such that they shouldn't have to "sell" themselves. They are inequipped to deal with the current economic realities.

Companies responsibilities are to themselves and their shareholders - not the legions of unemployed. The sooner that becomes universally understood, the better.

 

[Latrade]

That is not the case - read the article before commenting LAtrade.

The trap is that vastly experienced people are available for work having already upskilled or retrained, but are being discounted as candidates because of office politics by their less well qualified and less experienced interviewers/ employers.

Of course, this possibly goes all the way up the line to the captains of industry themselves, many of whom are good businessmen but haven't any qualifications at running a business having learn by the seat of their pants what measures to take, what corners to cut and what soundbites to use in place of logical argument and how to distort arguments or ignore them to make a point.

But let's take your suggestion online and people now in third level or competent professionals who are retraining decide to commit to these professions and skills you suggest are necessary.
Many are honours degree courses taking four years - what happens when they come our of university with a degree under their belt to be told that the industry has no need for them?

The way this country and the world is being mis-managed under capitalism is storing up a huge well of resentment amongst the lower 80% of the population.
Its clear some management strategies need to be applied economically, because the boom and bust cycles, the surplus and shortages, is not how a well run system should be managed.
Its how an uninformed population allows themselves to be manipulated by people promoting a "light regulation" agenda, who use these booms and busts to make vast profits and extract wealth from the economy.

But thankfully there are other approaches and other measures of success.

Look, architects are not a special case, they do not deserve any special attention or focus over and above others who are professional who based their choice of profession on the construction industry and its peripherals.

You say and others in the article (that I did read thank you) provide anecdotal evidence that they were passed over for a job. They have no idea what the company were looking for or wanted or why others were selected. They're guessing. There is an over supply at the moment of these professions, unlike in the past, employers can afford to be choosy.

What can happen is that people can continue to blame everyone else for their situation or look at what they can do to help themselves. Yes the government can do more, it breaks my heart that despite the screams from Google and other tech companies that it needs engineers will gladly go to where the engineers are, that the state ignored this (and parents when "encouraging" their child to chose a proper profession). The state also ignored the cry from Pharmachem on the need for scientists.

But people have the potential to learn these skills to some extent, architects have the artistic streak of design and precision that would appeal to many in the computer engineering sector. The trap is only there for those who can't see the woods for the trees. Their profession is becoming the weight holding them back, it's their skills that are important.

 

[Purple]

Your comparison of a skilled trade and a profession suits your argument but doesn't stand up to review.

For a degree in architecture you have to complete your Leaving Certificate then complete a five year course to obtain your Part II's (usually with a year out to get experience in an office after third year), then a minimum of two years working under the supervision of a member of the Institute (and sometimes four depending on the quality and complexity of the work) plus an assessment and a further exam to get your Part III's after which you start developing competence "on your own".

You will be twenty six to twenty nine by that time, assuming you did your Leaving Certificate at eighteen.

A trade usually requires an Junior Certificate and then three to four years - you will be nineteen or twenty by that time.

There is a decade in the difference, with all that this implies in terms of earning potential over the career of the person.

I am not aware of any apprenticeship that takes less than 4 years.
In the case of engineering trades it is 4 years and I am not aware of any employer who will take on an apprentice that doesn’t have a leaving cert. In our case we will only offer an employee an apprenticeship after they have worked here for at least a year and demonstrated the correct aptitude and attitude. That brings them to 23. They will then have to spend a further 3-5 years working under an experienced tradesperson, during which time they will have to complete numerous other courses at night (City and Guilds etc)and in house, to be regarded as fully capable and qualified.

I am not saying that an apprenticeship and a degree are equal, they are very different things. I am merely trying to correct your misconception that a 19 year old with a senior trades cert will be taken seriously as a skilled tradesperson by any employer. The idea is nonsense.

The minimum 2 years after architect's Part II qualification are required to attain the Part III's.
You can then undertake further study to attain a Master's or a Doctorate in Architecture. Another one or two years.

Great, but that’s not necessary to call yourself an architect.

A Machinist is fully qualified after his three to four year course.

“Machinist” is not a trade.

I am not aware what further training is required to attain a Master Machinist certificate or where such a Masters is accredited - happy to learn about it if such is the case.

Trades are not professions so they do not pretend to be self regulating and do not have closed shops in order to maintain their incomes. Therefore what they can do is more important than what courses they have completed. There are guilds of master craftsmen etc but as these are self regulating they are not taken seriously.

I have employed solicitors, barristers and architects in the past. I have never queried their qualifications, instead I looked for references that proved their skills, met them and sized them up as people and before hiring them I looked for proof that they were insured. The same applied to tradesmen I employed. It has usually worked out ok.

All of the above is a side issue. It doesn’t matter how well qualified an architect is and it doesn’t matter how well qualified a tradesperson is, if there’s no work for them then their skills and qualifications are worthless. If there is a shortage of work then prices will drop and quality will rise to the top.

 

[Purple]

Their profession is becoming the weight holding them back, it's their skills that are important.

Very well put. There is a sense of entitlement in some people because of the qualification they may have. This is absurd; nobody owes you anything because you choose to acquire a certain set of skills.
A friend of mine spend 4 years in the National College of Art and Design studying embroidery. She couldn’t get a job or make a living with her skills when she left. I wasn’t surprised. Either was she. She doesn’t feel the government failed her or that she is the victim of international capitalism or the Illuminati.

 

[Firefly]

We are seeing prejudice against employing hugely competent people by middle managers whose sole raison d'etre seems to be covering their backs.
As long as we have the jobs market riddled with self-contradictory job descriptions and interviews run by fearful middle managers, we're in a race to the bottom.

Hi ONQ,

I'd imagine that most architecs practices are pretty small and that any new hire is approved and reviewed by the owner / partner rather than a middle manager. If this is the case then any middle manager that's feeling threatened by experienced candidates would be found out pretty quickly. If you see a particular job then you could always write directly to the owner/parter.

I'm going to say something non-pc here. I think that age discrimmination is also at play. Why hire someone in their 40s/50s with a wife and kids (who was probably doing quite well until recently and is therefore a pit peeved/leveraged now) when you can hire someone in their early 30s for probably a lot less money, who has time on their side to add to the company and who doesn't have the same commitments? Why hire someone who was very senior in their position until recently who will probably now feel disheartened and may leave if/when things improve rather than someone younger and happy to learn the ropes? By the way, I think that is sad and unfair and discriminatory and hope I'm never in that position but I think it is more common than not being hired because the person hiring feels threatened by experienced candidates.

I also find it interesting that not a single person within the building industry raised any alarm bells when we were building 90,000 houses in a year! The goose with the golden egg has been killed and all those who benefited were happy to take the proceeds when they were going.

Firefly.

 

[Firefly]

The way this country and the world is being mis-managed under capitalism is storing up a huge well of resentment amongst the lower 80% of the population.
Its clear some management strategies need to be applied economically, because the boom and bust cycles, the surplus and shortages, is not how a well run system should be managed.
Its how an uninformed population allows themselves to be manipulated by people promoting a "light regulation" agenda, who use these booms and busts to make vast profits and extract wealth from the economy.

Me again!

I'm no economist and I'm sure someone like Chris could better explain this a lot better than me, but capitalism occurs when there is little or no government intervention and the market is left largely to itself. What we had over the last decade was MASSIVE government intervention. Tax breaks for hotels, mortgage interest relief for homeowners, heads of government ignoring warnings from the CB/Financial Regulator, the allowing of 100% mortgages by the F Gegulator, zoning scandals (limiting the supply of land) and all the rest. If the market was truely free from government interference perhaps this would not have happened...then again maybe it would..but the fact is that we don't know as we do not have a capitalist state.

 

[Latrade]

Very well put. There is a sense of entitlement in some people because of the qualification they may have. This is absurd; nobody owes you anything because you choose to acquire a certain set of skills.
A friend of mine spend 4 years in the National College of Art and Design studying embroidery. She couldn’t get a job or make a living with her skills when she left. I wasn’t surprised. Either was she. She doesn’t feel the government failed her or that she is the victim of international capitalism or the Illuminati.

I've always had a sense that in employment 3rd level qualifications are important, but it's less the specific subject for most and more what it proves you're capable of and of course a demonstration of certain skills. When you do a degree you find subjects and parts that you find more interesting than others, that's natural, you should push these and also explore them as part of any development.

I too have a friend who did embroidery, she has a small online craft shop doing some good embroidery, but she used the degree to demonstrate a skill in design. She now works in the design department for a huge tech company.

There are further shifts in employment coming fairly soon and again we need to be ready for this. It won't be too long before the standard IT jobs in companies starts to lose numbers as cloud computing takes over. Plus Microsoft should be concerned that HP is getting out of the PC business (given they only do software and HP would be their biggest carrier by some distance).

The point is that you have to be prepared to reinvent yourself and your career and not take for granted that your chosen profession will always be in such demand or so lucrative.

There are areas in the country where there is an unemployment trap. Small towns where the choice of employment is/was limited and have lost those employers. They don't have the luxury of a 3rd level education or a professional base.

To use sporting metaphors, professionals should stop looking where the puck is and instead look at where it is going to be. It doesn't take too much research to realise what is going to dominate the world in the next 10 years and how you can position yourself to be a part of that.

Again, take Google. Their recruitment is still slightly odd but simply two critical requirements: academic qualifications and can you fit into the Google culture. If you're a computer engineer too then you will be a God. But have a look also at the jobs on the Google website, those jobs have been up there for at least 6 months in some cases, but we haven't got the skills to fill them. One of the biggest companies in the world is screaming for these skills and all we can offer is thousands of HR officers.