Thyssen Krupp call for better skills and work attitude from apprentice pool
12th February 2010
Margot James met Terry Sargeant, Managing Director of Thyssen Krupp (TK) in Cradley Heath, and was given a tour of business operations.
On the agenda was the lack of support for manufacturing and the opportunities for apprentices at the German owned company.
TK is one of the world’s largest suppliers of steel processes and metal parts to the automotive, medical equipment and other large manufacturing sectors. TK is a multi-national company and the UK is its third largest market with sales her of £1.7 billion.
Discussion centred round main concerns:
- Effects of the recession, UK sales were down between 15 and 20% last year on 2008, this not only resulted in redundancies but also in a drop of taxes paid to the UK government.
- • Trade credit, this is an issue of great concern, it is simply no longer possible to get insurance on debts from large firms even.
- Liquidity, more than a year after the bank rescue banks are still not lending as they should be especially to smaller companies.
- Poor skills including literacy and numeracy of students applying to TK commercial apprenticeship schemes.
- Poor support for manufacturing compared to rival firms in Germany where they initiated a bolder car scrappage scheme and the government pays towards the wages of workers who have agreed to a reduced working week rather than a redundancy programme.
The skills issue is of great concern considering how much money this Government has pumped in to schools and Further Education Colleges. Margot said “It is not just numeracy and literacy skills that are lacking; there is also an issue with attitude to work. Half the apprentices taken on by TK last year dropped out, were not up to the demands of the job as assessed by themselves or the TK management, this is a bad situation considering one of the worst problems facing young people in Stourbridge and Halesowen are the lack of apprenticeships in the region currently – here is a company who can give a College leaver a great career start and half of those selected can’t take the pace.
