Has anybody tried to employ new staff recently? We are having a nightmare at the moment. We've placed a number of adverts and had virtually no response. The few phone calls we've had have either been from total morons who are clearly unsuitable or from people who, when given a weeks trial turn out to be utterly hopeless. Last Monday we laid off an Irish fella who was commuting from Braintree (3hrs each way everyday) and predictably became unreliable, but less predictably made a complete dogs breakfast of a job he claimed to be vastly overqualified for.

Last Tuesday we took on a younger lad who appeared at the interview with his flies open, and no 2cv to speak of, but on the positive side he had experience (so he said) and didn't mind early starts or the rural location of our work. By Wednesday he was begging for a lift to and from work because his Missus needed the car. When asked to start at 5am tomorrow for a site job he can't make it because his Missus needs the car, I've refused to wake up at 3am to go and collect him and there are no trains that early. Today, he didn't turn up (still on his trial period remember) and never bothered to call and let us know until both my boss and I had bombarded him with answer phone messages, and at 12 noon he rang in with some cock and bull story that didn't add up about his kid falling out of bed. It's just bollocks, and we all know it. But what are we meant to do? We have work stacked up waiting to be done, we pay a bloody good starting wage and we are pretty relaxed.

I can't understand why it's so hard, we are working every hour possible to get the work out the door, and in the meantime trying to babysit morons who can barely tell one end of a welder or lamp post from another, let alone manage to dress themselves in the mornings. Aren't we meant to be in a mega recession and monster youth unemployment crisis? Being more Eastern Europeans over I say, at least they can put their fucking trousers on correctly and write a 2cv.

By the way, the swear filter adapts the word 'C V' to prevent its incorrect usage.

That did throw me

But yes there seems to be both extremes!

Southern engineering services have been looking for a tig welder for at least a year!!

If i was more qualified id offer to help!

But yes it seems the british dont excel themselves at the mo!!

I assumed you just weren't sure about hiring anyone who didn't have the sense to drive an A Series! There's a lad at work who started last Monday, and had received his final written warning by Friday. Some people just don't get it...

Thats incredible!!

Russ what about an apprentice?

We considered it, but ultimately I don't want to have to babysit somebody and oversee all their work, we need an individual who will come in and do the job from the word go.

I really am astonished at how hard it is to find an undividual who wants a job and who knows how to do a job. Where are the million unemployed youth I hear Miliband harping on about all day on the radio? They aren't in West Sussex, and if they are they don't want an easy and well paid job.

We might as well stipulate that only 2cv owners should apply, we'd have had much the same response.

We have the same problem over here in Holland too. It is not recently, some 10 years ago we already had the same problem.
Youngsters are not interested in a job where they have to use their hands. They only are interested in playing with computers.
I did employ some aprentices, but they all said: Oh, i will change school and learn for an other job!
So in the end I even did not bother to try and teach them how to do things properly.
As our contract with the school ended I refused to sign a new one.
The teacher who was responsable for the aprentices did not understand why I did not want to continue the cooperation.
But even qualified gardeners were not available . Well, they said they were experianced gardeners, but there where just a few who were able to do a job properly and without me acting as a babysitter.
So no worries Russell, it is not just an UK -problem.
Here we have a lot of people unemployed and our politicians are "worried about the many people unemployed " but there is no-one available for the proper handwork.

That is why I am quite impressed with the French system. At 16 you choose either academic school or professional school. The one carries on with all the normal subjects and normally on to university. The Pro school gets you onto the skills and apprentice style professions plus work experience.

Why does everyone have to go down academia where it is assumed everyone goes to university, hence there are a lot of degree "qualified" Tesco check out operatives.