One of the myths about anyone over 60 is that we don’t like change. It’s said we are less adaptable. We’re technophobes. It’s younger people that love change. They welcome innovation. Younger people will try anything, whereas when you get a bit older, well you’re likely to be set in your ways.
I’m wondering how true that is. When the latest unemployment figures were published, the headline news was about the rising figures of young unemployed and what more can be done to help them. The government has injected £1.4 bn into a skills training scheme to help them find a job. Encouragingly there has been an 18% increase for apprenticeships begun by 18 year olds and a 22% increase for young people aged between 19 and 24.
For me though, the more interesting figure was one that did not feature as front page news. The apprenticeship scheme, although aimed at the young, is open to anyone. Last year there was a 900% rise in the over-60s signing up. Of course statistics being statistics, it’s now quite as ‘wow’ as it seems at first reading. 400 over-60 year olds signed up in 2009-10. During this past year, 3, 910 signed up as new apprentices. So it’s 900% of not a large number. Nevertheless this was not anticipated. Having so many older people taking advantage of the scheme has pushed policy makers into suggesting that apprenticeships should only be accessed by the young.
Wiley older person Vince Cable has said he is not concerned about the spread of age groups beginning apprenticeships and he is right.
Shouldn’t we be applauding older apprentices? Although the scheme is likely to have been used as a cost shifting exercise for retraining by some employers, because other subsidised training schemes have been cut, it is commendable that people over 60 are signing up to start all over again. I’ve heard of one 60+ guy who was losing his job and offered an apprenticeship to become a gas fitter. He has to follow the experienced fitters around and assist just the same as the 18 year olds. He even went on an outward bound course with them – and completed it. I think that’s heroic. It makes me fill up when I think about it, like watching those old black and white stilted newsreels of men marching off to war.
Why are they doing it? And why are employers happy to recruit older apprentices? I’m hazarding a guess that your senior apprentices, contrary to the myth, have the gumption, the resilience and the flexibility to do whatever it takes to keep working, and if that means learning a whole new set of skills, then bring it on. The Baby Boomers are there on the front line.
Well Done Chaps and Chapesses, heads up, backs straight, get stuck in – you can show those young’uns a thing or two.
