School Leavers not good enough for stacking shelves says head of Tesco

[shaunbhoy]

There seems to be some sort of disconnect here. Clearly, as today's school leavers are the brightest yet, as evidenced by their exemplary results and the percentage of them attaining 5 passes at Grade C and above, something else must have changed.
It can only be concluded therefore that over the same period when yoofs have been getting exponentially much more intelligent, some dastardly forces have been at work making the process of stacking shelves that much more complex.

[gingerjedi]

It would be interesting to get "Sir Terry" to elaborate on just what constitutes, on the part of Tesco, them "picking up the pieces".
It all boils down to the old "Pay Peanuts Get Monkeys" adage IMHO.

I think it does, money is a great motivator and if Tesco can't find decent candidates in this climate then they are doing something wrong.

I freely admit that my attitude to work stinks since my rate has fallen through the floor, I do the bare minimum I can possibly get away with. Exploitation works both ways.

[sweetandsour]

Not much, you can use them yourself in most supermarkets now with no training at all.

I take everything back.

The number of times that I am told that there's an "Unexpected item in the bagging area" tells me that there is more skill involved than meets the eye.

[JoJoGabor]

It doesn't matter anyway, there are millions of Indians who are willing to come and work over here, and as much as we may slate them, you can't deny they work hard and are enthusiastic. Everytime I pass one of the guys who hand out the free papers in London, its like a cold call from a persistent salesman... "Take one" Take One2 "Take One". Can you imagine a british teenager with that amount of enthusiasm? They'd likely stack them on the side of the street and sit down and send text messages, then at the end of the day tip them all in the river

[original PM]

you need to stop trying to scan your todger

but the main problem is that the expectations of the erm less academic kids have been set to high by the bobbins the government keep spouting

seriously if you are thick you will more than likely end up in a low paid job and live on a council estate

[darmstadt]

The big companies discovered Eastern European accession workers a few years ago. Now this supply is drying up (possibly because the weak pound makes the work less attractive, or maybe they've found better opportunities) they're looking around for new sources of cheap labour.

Interesting you should mention that as the last time I went to the UK I noticed that nearly everyone in the hotels were not of British extraction, primarily East European on the customer facing side and further east in the more menial jobs. This went for a lot of other places I visited in the UK as well. Over here I have noticed in the majority of hotels and shops that I visit nearly everyone is German, from the cleaner in the morning to the receptionist. Why does the UK have so many non-UK people working in these jobs? Is it because Brits no longer like getting their hands dirty or getting up early in the morning? Is it because the companies in the UK pay low wages and Germany pay higher (doubt it as there is no minimum wage in Germany)? There must be an answer, I mean why would someone from Eastern Europe want to travel as far as the UK to get minimum wage when they could travel closer to home and get, probably, a better standard of living. Confused....

[Churchill]

I take everything back.

The number of times that I am told that there's an "Unexpected item in the bagging area" tells me that the software was offshored to India.

Fixed that for ya.

[sasguru]

It can only be concluded therefore .... some dastardly forces have been at work making the process of stacking shelves that much more complex.

I suppose it's personal experience you're drawing on here.

[dang65]

"Sadly, despite all the money that has been spent, standards are still woefully low in too many schools. Employers like us are often left to pick up the pieces."

What is that supposed to mean anyway? Is he saying that they have to teach new staff reading and writing and arithmetic before they can even start training? I don't think so.

I mean, most of the jobs I did (before settling on one speciality, I mean) required training before I could do them properly, but what the employer got was someone who had the basic educational grounding and was able get started quickly. None of those employers expected ready-trained recruits. It was taken as read that training would be required and would be provided.

I think the difference now is that a lot of corporate employers have tried to make savings by removing training from their processes and are now suffering the consequences.

[minestrone]

I worked in KFC for a while just before leaving uni and was shocked at how thick many of the people were in there. They were at the standard most people I know passed at primary 7.

The management knew that and students were given the more dangerous jobs in the kitchen, some of the people would have poured a bucket of water into the deep fat cookers given half a chance.