Youth opportunitiesj are there any. are there any.
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Don't let the merchants of doom get yo down, they're limited, but they exist various levels of the transport industn, David Wilcox supplies the details.
VITH UNEMPLOYMENT curantly running at 2.85m and chool leavers and young eople with particularly poor job Tospects, it's easy to be desondent about the chances of oung newcomers to the road ransport industry finding work. But there are still a limited lumber of opportunities to join he industry and these exist at arious levels. The accompany-pg table shows the number of people employed in the various ,ectors of the commercial road ransport industry and gives ,ome indication of where the argest potential job opportuniies exist. It reveals that there are ilmost half a million people vorking in the industry as a vhole.
One of the most common vays to enter the road transport ndustry in the past has been via he traditional craft apprentice;hip. Unfortunately, as the re;ession has taken a tighter grip n the last three years the lumber of employers offering apprenticeships has dwindled and there are now 75 per cent less places than there were five years ago.
The problem here is that if we fail to take on apprentices now, there will be a shortage of skilled fitters in five or six years time. Moreover, the trend towards minimum maintenance techniques on commercial vehicles, such as self-adjusting brakes, is not expected to have any significant effect on the future number of fitters required.
We are already beginning to feel the effects of the cut-back in apprentice recruitment which started in the late-1970s.
The Road Transport Industry Training Board is the body concerned with most aspects of training for the road transport industry (including the car and retail garage side) and it has recently taken steps to try and plug the gap caused by the lack of apprentice places.
The RTITB has come up with a 12-month course called Road Motor Vehicle Servicing. It aims to train youngsters to a level lower than the traditional apprenticeship but yet to a stan
dard acceptable for most vehicle maintenance and servicing. The course includes training in "transferable engineering skills" — such as welding and workshop practice — to make it as versatile as possible.
People between the ages of 16 and 18 would be elegible; mainly those who would have undergone an apprenticeship in normal circumstances. They will be fostered to an employer and spend 26 weeks covering a programmed course of learning at a college and have 22 weeks of on-the-job training with the employer. The course is made up of a series of modules, so there are different options to suit particular types of vehicle servicing.
At the end of the year (there is a final test), the successful trainee may either be taken on by his fostering employer or try his luck on the open mark where the recognisable certi cate he has won will help.
The Manpower Services Cor mission, which oversees ti' type of course and to which ti RTITB reports, has given its a proval but sadly has not be forthcoming with the necessa finance.
Although the RT1TB has pro.% sionally filled the initial target f places and the colleges and or ployers are ready, nothing Ci happen until the MSC releas, the money.
The RTITB, which has offer( to put E1/2m of its own moo' into the scheme, believes that the Government acts quickly ar makes available the finance recently promised to put in youth unemployment, ttcourse could get off the grour in September.
Everything hangs in the ance, but time is running out.
In exactly the same position another RTITB course aimed e elusively at the road freig transport industry and called Introduction to Road Transpc and Distribution.
This is a 26-week course ( weeks off the job at a loc Group Training Association, well as 13 weeks with an a proved employer) and aims provide 17-year-old school lea ers with a broad-basE knowledge of transport at distribution.
The training includes wal house practices, fork truck driv training, car licence instructic vehicle inspection and drive mates duties. The RSA Assoc ted Knowledge exam is al taken.
The RTITB has initial nominated seven GTAs to r the course, each with 12 placf and MSC has given its approv but the course still stands on t starting blocks until the MSC Government monE materialises. For both of the proposed )urses, the RTITB is at pains to ress that the young trainees 'e not going to be used as :heap labour".
One scheme definitely going lead and already well-estabihed is Young HGV Driver aining. This started five years jo and is administered by the ational Joint Training Commite which includes representafes of the FTA, RHA, RTITB and ree unions.
Although the legal minimum le to hold an hgv licence is 21, is scheme allows the age to be duced in certain cases. The iung HGV Driver trainee joins e scheme at the age of 16 -len he is taken on by an apoved employer.
At 17, he has car-driving in'uction, at 18 he may take his 3ss 3 hgv licence and is owed to drive class 3 vehicles iaccompanied on revenuerning duties for a year. At 19 can take his hgv Class 2 test d drive these vehicles unacmpanied.
=inally, at the age of 20, he is owed to take his Class 1 hgv t must then drive this class of i cle only when accompanied a full Class 1 holder until he is During this five-year course J trainee must also sit the As:iated Knowledge exam by !RSA.
-here are about 500 corn-lies registered as approved ployers under this Young V Drivers scheme and there some 400 trainees at preit.
3 it right there should be cial encouragement to train -y drivers? Do we need more? fact the number of road llage drivers has fallen from ,500 in 1968 to 93,500 in
1978, and has probably dropped even further since then.
But the expectation is that as the economy picks up more hgv drivers will be required.
The RTITB also points out that the Young HGV Drivers scheme is designed to produce better rather than more drivers. After five years of training the driver who emerges should be considerably better than the man who takes a private ten-day hgv course.
At present there is no equivalent young drivers scheme in the psv industry for young would-be bus and coach drivers. The Confederation of British Road Passenger Transport (CPT) is discussing the idea and the committee assigned to this will be reporting in the next few weeks.
HoWever, opportunities for young would-be psv drivers received a minor boost last Octo
ber when the 1980 Transport Bill was enacted. This reduced the minimum age for a psv licenceholder from 21 to 18 as long as he or she is working on a regular service route not exceeding 50km, or is driving a minibus designed to carry not more than 15 people, including the driver.
To be realistic, the number of job opportunities that this new regulation has created is small bus companies have not been taking on many new drivers of any age — but if things pick up in the future it will help.
For the youngster who is 'looking to join the operations / management side of the road transport industry there are also several means of entry.
Perhaps the most common is to join a haulage or distribution company or a coach operator as a trainee traffic clerk. Wages are usually poor but this is probably the best type of practical experience for someone wanting to progress on the operational side. The job opportunities columns of CM and local papers are the best hunting ground for traffic clerk vacancies.
In the last five years, the number of universities and polytechnics offering transportoriented courses has multiplied. At the last count, there were around 20 universities and polytechnics running degree or HND courses in subjects such as Business Studies (Transport), Transport Engineering and Planning, and Transport Studies.
The number of graduate entrants into the industry has increased throughout the 1970s and a survey conducted in 1978 showed that just under half of them reached management status with their first employer.
Though the RTITB is not responsible for these academic courses, it does award generous grants to companies which recruit graduates and this has no doubt improved the graduate's chances of a career in the road transport industry.
One of the largest employers of graduates is the National Freight Company which will take on graduates and may then put them through its own management training course. This course is run by NFC company BRS and also takes a limited number of young people already working for the NFC in addition to the graduates.
It is a year-long course with the first six months working at an NFC company learning the mechanics of a typical depot / branch. The second part of the course is at the University of Aston, Birmingham, and covers the formal training.
Finally, the trainees carry out' three projects back with their NFC companies involving operations, finance and staff management.
At the end of the year, the trainee is, hopefully, appointed to a management position within the NFC. This year there were 24 places on the course; 18 graduates and six internal people. All these places have been filled for the course that starts at the end of September.
Applications for places on next year's course which begins in September 1982 should be made this December. The NFC says that the actual degree subject is not so important as the graduate's personality and potential.
The NFC also takes on sandwich-course students, employing them during their time out of college or university. If they impress, NFC is likely to offer tham a full-time job on graduation.
Head office of the RTITB is Capital House, Empire Way, Wembley, Middlesex. The National Freight Company is at the Merton Centre, 45 St Peters Street, Bedford MK40 2UB.