You know something seems to have gone drastically wrong with training in our country.
In the old days companies did and paid for the training themselves not agencies and academies.
I suppose the thinking was, if you want work in the industrial area youintend to trade in, you should train your own staff to be able to do it, not make the government or the staff pay.
After all its the companies that will probably make the most money from it. You may pay your staff say £28,000 a year or possibly less, but probably expect to make something like £100,000 - £200,000 a year from them.
Even taking out overheads that still leaves a big lump of cash left over for a healthy profit. In the past you where expected to use some of that to train your people.
That way the industry took on the number of apprentices the industry required and there was work for.
Now days it seems thousands of people are qualified Plumbers but with hardly any experience.
I often wonder though, if they had known what was going to happen and jobs had been avaliable in other industries would they have gone after those skilled jobs in other sectors rather than Plumbing?
It seems to me, we are training people for none existent jobs and charging the trainee's not the trade or the government for the training.
I am all for keeping training open to all, but you have to be realistic about available work. Its unfair to promote trades when work is scarce.
The human side of it though, is understandable. Who would not have a go for a living wage trade if your made redundant or trapped in the minimum wage trap?
The reality it seems is, that many parts of the Plumbing industry can be seasonal and easily affected by changes in the economy. We are after all not only a repair trade but also a construction trade.
You can probably expect to be in and out of work like a yo-yo and the same applies to self employed and work. A smooth trip is not guaranteed and as far as I know never was really.