Britain is worried that its future labour force are losing jobs to the burgeoning Eastern European population. Can the PM's new startegy work? I think, Malaysia should do this too. By having government guided programmes for extensive labour planning, we would not have serious fluctuations in the labour market. The brain drain issue and mat rempit could be killed with one stone!
Soon in the UK, School-leavers are to be guided into apprenticeships that suit their interests using a university-style clearing scheme, Gordon Brown will announce.
Ministers want the number of apprenticeships for 16 to 18-year-olds to increase to 90,000, with one in five young people taking them up by 2013.
Employers will be given incentives to take on apprentices, including wage subsidies for small businesses.
Public sector employers, such as hospitals and schools, are to receive help to recruit young people on special training schemes.
Youngsters interested in becoming an apprentice will enter a clearing system at school similar to that run by Ucas for universities, which will channel them towards a scheme that suits them.
The plans will be unveiled by the Prime Minister at a business event in London, alongside James Purnell, the new Work and Pensions Secretary, and John Denham, the Skills Secretary.
Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, Sir Alan Sugar and Gary Rhodes, the chef, have also been enlisted.
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Mr Brown will say: "This is my proposal today - a new partnership between government and employers to create a Britain of opportunity where everyone can make the most of their talents, a new commitment to take the tough long-term decisions to create the skills and welfare system we need."
Describing his own experience as an apprentice, Sir Alex said: "Apprenticeships were a comprehensive education which taught young people how to be part of a workforce.
"It is sad that their demise was so swift and any attempt to revive their place in a young person's training should be welcomed and will benefit the economy for years to come."
The launch includes radical welfare reform proposals, including plans to extend the role of the private sector in finding employment for jobseekers.
Mr Purnell is expected to announce pilot schemes in 11 areas for the voluntary and private sector to find jobs, a move seen as a victory for the Blairite wing of New Labour.
Interviewed on BBC1's Andrew Marr Show, Mr Purnell said the Government had a "moral obligation" to look at innovative approaches to the problem of long-term unemployment, adding that he had no ideological preference between the public, private and voluntary sectors in getting people back to work.
He said: "The big reform which I want to bring in is to look at how we can use the private sector, the voluntary sector as well as the public sector to help people get into work because if they can bring in innovation, a new approach, it's our moral obligation to make sure we get the best service for people in that situation."
Mr Purnell revealed the launch would endorse radical recommendations made in a report last year by David Freud, a City banker, and go further.
The unemployed will be forced to take a skills test to discover which jobs they are capable of in a new approach described by Mr Brown as "carrot and stick".
Claimants will have to accept individual training to learn skills to enhance their job prospects or risk being stripped of benefits.
In an interview on the BBC's Politics Show, Mr Brown said employers were keen to give jobs to skilled workers.
"British people who are trying to get these skills ought to be in a position to get jobs," he added.
Monday, 28 January 2008
Biological black vs Ideological Black- Who will win the actual Black votes?
Hye, I havent blogged for ages. This is partly due to inactiveness thru out the christmas vacation and heckalotof work at the start of term. Anyhow, as a Hillary supporter, I am posting the question, can Obama turn on the Black heat?
Remember the writer Toni Morrison’s remark that one Bill Clinton was America’s “first black president”? In 1998, she eulogised: “Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.”
Seems she’s thought again. Today, she’s set to endorse an actual first black president - should he be elected – in the person of Barack Obama. Of course, even Obama joked about the notion that Bill Clinton might be black. At last week’s debate in South Carolina, Obama [a]mused: "I would have to investigate more Bill’s dancing abilities and some of this other stuff before I accurately judge whether he was actually a brother." So does Morrison’s rethink matter?
First of all, it’s worth noting, as Too Sense does here, that in the original New Yorker piece, which the quotation came from, Morrison’s broader point seemed to be (the article is a tough read) was that during the Monica Lewinsky Bill Clinton was persecuted the same way that blacks had been through history.
Be that as it may, the “first black president” bit was all that stuck and the Clintons have certainly used it to their advantage. Last year, Hillary Clinton joked about being in “this interracial marriage”.
Some towering figures in the American black community have bought into this. Andrew Young, the civil rights hero and former ambassador to the UN, made the disgusting joke recently that “Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He’s probably gone with more black women than Barack.”
But the South Carolina primary and the pattern of racial remarks by the Clintons – particularly Bill – since Barack Obama’s stunning victory in the Iowa caucuses has transformed the race debate here.
People like Dick Morris believe that the remarks were a deliberate strategy to paint Obama as “the black candidate” – ensuring he would win in the South but lose big among white and Hispanic voters, thereby guaranteeing Hillary the nomination.
My hunch is that that was indeed the strategy but that it now seems to be backfiring. It appears that the Ted Kennedy endorsement was made largely because of his dismay at the Clinton comments on race. And Kennedy’s not just endorsing, he’s going to be stumping across the country for Obama.
The South Carolina win for Obama, moreover, was by a clear 28 points. Although blacks did indeed vote overwhelmingly for Obama (80 per cent) and he was third after John Edwards and Hillary among white voters, there was clearly significant white support for Obama and he has at least a fighting chance of living up to his transcending-race rhetoric.
Practically speaking, Toni Morrison’s endorsement of Obama is just a footnote in the 2008 election race. But it is a sign that the issue of Bill Clinton’s relationship with African Americans has changed. To borrow one of the phrases Obama uses frequently about his candidacy, Morrison has turned the page.
Remember the writer Toni Morrison’s remark that one Bill Clinton was America’s “first black president”? In 1998, she eulogised: “Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.”
Seems she’s thought again. Today, she’s set to endorse an actual first black president - should he be elected – in the person of Barack Obama. Of course, even Obama joked about the notion that Bill Clinton might be black. At last week’s debate in South Carolina, Obama [a]mused: "I would have to investigate more Bill’s dancing abilities and some of this other stuff before I accurately judge whether he was actually a brother." So does Morrison’s rethink matter?
First of all, it’s worth noting, as Too Sense does here, that in the original New Yorker piece, which the quotation came from, Morrison’s broader point seemed to be (the article is a tough read) was that during the Monica Lewinsky Bill Clinton was persecuted the same way that blacks had been through history.
Be that as it may, the “first black president” bit was all that stuck and the Clintons have certainly used it to their advantage. Last year, Hillary Clinton joked about being in “this interracial marriage”.
Some towering figures in the American black community have bought into this. Andrew Young, the civil rights hero and former ambassador to the UN, made the disgusting joke recently that “Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He’s probably gone with more black women than Barack.”
But the South Carolina primary and the pattern of racial remarks by the Clintons – particularly Bill – since Barack Obama’s stunning victory in the Iowa caucuses has transformed the race debate here.
People like Dick Morris believe that the remarks were a deliberate strategy to paint Obama as “the black candidate” – ensuring he would win in the South but lose big among white and Hispanic voters, thereby guaranteeing Hillary the nomination.
My hunch is that that was indeed the strategy but that it now seems to be backfiring. It appears that the Ted Kennedy endorsement was made largely because of his dismay at the Clinton comments on race. And Kennedy’s not just endorsing, he’s going to be stumping across the country for Obama.
The South Carolina win for Obama, moreover, was by a clear 28 points. Although blacks did indeed vote overwhelmingly for Obama (80 per cent) and he was third after John Edwards and Hillary among white voters, there was clearly significant white support for Obama and he has at least a fighting chance of living up to his transcending-race rhetoric.
Practically speaking, Toni Morrison’s endorsement of Obama is just a footnote in the 2008 election race. But it is a sign that the issue of Bill Clinton’s relationship with African Americans has changed. To borrow one of the phrases Obama uses frequently about his candidacy, Morrison has turned the page.
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