Firms using youngwith £3 an hour jobs

UNSCRUPULOUS employers are exploiting young people by paying them £3 an hour on year long contracts to work bars, clean rooms and serve food and calling it an apprenticeship, the Sentinel can reveal.

A civil service whistleblower told the Sentinel the practice is insidious with “a lot of companies using Government apprenticeship laws/funding to employ people doing menial tasks at way below the national minimum wage.”

Secretary of the Londonderry Trades Council Liam Gallagher said he was aware that the pressure placed on some training providers to find apprenticeship places was leaving young people open to exploitation.

“Because of the pressure being applied to training providers they as a result have to place young people somewhere,” said Mr Gallagher.

“It is inevitable that young people are being placed in skills areas that are not relevant to their training area and as a result young people are open to exploitation by unscrupulous employers,” he added.

Mr Gallagher said he knew of one case where a local apprentice joiner found himself inexplicably placed in a laundrette and that whilst apprentice tradesmen and women accepted the necessity of labouring on placements they should not be exploited by employers.

But according to the Sentinel’s source the practice is becoming more and more widespread.

“Apprentice national minimum wage is £3 - less than half the standard national minimum wage, and these ‘apprenticeships’ are fixed term, year long, ‘courses’ in such complicated tasks as hotel housekeeping, bar tending, reception manning etc.

“Obviously teaching someone to housekeep a room would take the guts of a day, a week if you’re pushing it, yet these apprenticeships allow for hotels and other industries to employ young people at a pittance through a charade of giving them a trade instead of actually having to pay the national minimum wage.”

The Sentinel has viewed a number of such contracts which are advertised as permanent positions with a minimum of 30 hours per week.

The practice is perfectly legal but allows employers pay young people just £3 an hour whilst keeping would be workers entitled to the going rate for such positions on the dole.

The job notices for vacancies seen by the paper state that the positions meet the requirements of the National Minimum Wage Act.

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