The value of Work Experience

The average person stays in each permanent job he/she gets for four years.  If we include the temporary and part time jobs that a person might take during a time of recession (of the type we have been experiencing), then the average person will stay in each job for an average of two years*.

This is a staggering turn around in the job market when compared with the past, and is due to three factors:

1. The ease with which employers can remove employees in the first year of employment.
2. The years of recession which has caused many employers to take on staff on short-term and zero hours contracts.
3. A growth in the, “I don’t have to put up with this”. attitude from some young people who expect work to be, well, more like a social event than work, and who sometimes also lack the ability to handle the basic courtesies that employers who have been in the job for 30 years will demand and expect. 

Whether our society will now return to the previous norm of four years per job is hard to say.  But even if we do, there is still the fact that the average employee will change jobs 12 or more times during a career.

So, getting used to the experience of moving into a new work environment is no bad thing – and the sooner young people have that experience the better.



To help you with that experience, the Careers Department is here to support you with ideas of pursuing Work Experience.  Come down and talk to us, and see if we can help you find something worthwhile, and something that will help you on the right path for a successful future.


* Statistics taken from an extract of materials produced by www.firstandbest.co.uk

Social Care and Children's Services - information resources

Work in social care and early years services

Employers need to encourage over 90,000 new workers into social care and children’s services each year

for the foreseeable future. Yet many people have a negative perception of what it’s like to work in care or

are unaware of the range of careers available.  Two new resources are available to help explore work in care with students.

A Question of Care: a Career for You

Ambassadors for careers in care

Prince's Trust and HSBC Research findings

UK businesses must tackle skills crisis

· 73 per cent of British businesses believe a skills crisis will hit the UK within the next three years.

· 32 per cent of organisations report skills shortages at entry level and more than half are currently

facing difficulties filling vacancies (53 per cent).

· 72 per cent believe that the recruitment of young people into the workforce is vital to avert a skills

crisis.

New research from The Prince's Trust and HSBC indicates that business leaders are facing skills gaps,

threatening to hamper economic growth.

UK employers say they are struggling to recruit, yet hundreds of thousands of unemployed young people are

desperate for work. We need to work together to up-skill the workforce of the future.