Analisis of The Apprenticeship Service, UK

En abril pasado intenté formar parte de la delegación mexicana al Y20 en San Petersburgo, Rusia. Desafortunadamente no fui elegido :( asi que decidí publicar aqui el ensayo que escribi para la selección.

No conozco a ninguno de los jóvenes que se fue a representar a México, pero estoy seguro que lo harán con el compromiso y responsabilidad que implica ese encargo. Felicidades a los ganadores y pues aqui mi ensayo. Ojala lo disfruten.


Analysis of a successful policy: National Apprenticeship Service in the UK as a way of reducing youth unemployment in Mexico.

Youth unemployment is an important problem in Mexico and all around the world. In 2013, the International Labour Office of the UN accounts for youth unemployment as 12.7% of all youth worldwide (that’s 75 million people!) and in Mexico the rate is 8.7%, which represents almost twice the unemployment rate of adults. According to Mexico’s Statistics Bureau (INEGI), of all those young persons that are employed, 66% are employed in the informal sector. (INEGI 2012).
Reducing youth unemployment is important because it provides opportunities for young citizens to become a productive and positive part of society. This is why public policy like The National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) in the UK is relevant. The NAS is a matchmaking, certification and information service between learners looking for work and employers looking for talent but can’t afford it.
According to businesses, youth unemployment is due to lack of legal flexibility, high costs and risks, or the lack of graduates with the skills required. Regarding the labor market flexibility, a recent labor reform in Mexico has given plenty of legal flexibility, allowing for temporary contracts and limits in compensations in labor lawsuits. In an recent poll released by the Interamerican Development Bank, in Mexico, of every ten companies with open positions, four report that filling those positions is difficult because they can’t find people with the skills they’re looking for. How can this be if the unemployment rate for young professionals soars to 14%? (INEGI, 2012)
Most of us, young people have little or no relevant experience. Few have the skills needed to be highly productive to achieve the competitiveness companies need. Many have preparation in fields that have little or no demand, and some have been prepared in fields that are just obsolete or with too many graduates. For many of us recent graduates, this seems familiar. When courses are finished, there is a lack of job opportunities. Not surprisingly, few companies are willing to invest in hiring a young person that they needed to pay and train. For many young people there are not many choices: they could either migrate (sometimes illegaly), or turn to informal economy, crime or take poorly payed jobs that leave you tired and frustrated. Take for instance my
case. When I looked into the job market, I realized that I was not a suitable candidate for any positions. This situation take young people away from economic opportunities.
In terms of social analysis, this marginalization of youth can have dangerous effects, sometimes pushing young people into crime. As of 2013, the first cause of death for adults, aged 18-29 in Mexico is homicide (Mexico’s Interior Ministry 2013). As a personal expirence I may state that many of my former classmates in secondary school, high school or even University failed to continue their education and turned into informal economy or migrated to the USA in search of better economic prospects, and some ended up dead as a result of their involvement in crime. There is an urgent need to acquire skills, training and experience that were not provided during school years. They can be obtained thorugh properly planned and executed public policy to pull back youth into employment and formality.
The NAS provides for those needs. It helps employers find motivated talent for their businesses and gives an economic incentive to offset the cost of hiring to Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) with less than 1,000 employees. Due to their size and financial constrains, they tend to work with employees informally and/or avoid hiring. Larger enterprises have the capacity to train employees with time in classroom-like environments. They are not so constrained in hiring, but will still find the service usefull to find talent. This way, policy like the NAS supports economic growth and productivity.
For the apprentices or learners, it provides a matchmaking service to find those places where they can be hired as apprentices and provides certification of skills and training received. It covers apprenticeships end to end at a State national policy level, taking their job seriously with national government resources and funds.
The UK’s NAS is young and successful: it was formally established in 2009. That academic year (2008/09) over 279,000 apprenticeships began. In the 2011/12 academic year, 520,600 apprenticeships started and 806,500 apprenticeships were in progress, averaging an 81.5% successful completion rate. This means that most of those that go into an apprenticeship stay and finish, with most lasting over a year. (Data Service UK 2013)
The lack of a similar program in Mexico and the disconnection between education and the job market seems to push youth away from the formal sector in Mexico’s
economy. Few young people have the resources to become a suitable candidate for the job market going into unpaid internships or extended social service. That’s why the NAS determines that apprentices must be payed at least minimum wage since they must be employed in a job with a productive purpose. On average, apprentices earn around 680 GBP per month, around 12,700 MXN. (NAS 2007)
Without public-private, learner-employer coordination policies like NAS, more than half of all young people of working age will continue working in the informal sector, with all of its disadvantages: low wages, no social security, no health insurance. The jobs offered by the formal economy, like the ones I’ve had myself, will continue to be temporary, with low-productivity, low-pay and long working hours with endless probation periods. They do not provide opportunities to achieve our aspirations and reach more permanent, high-productivity, better paid positions. With a serious apprenticeships policy properly funded and operated by the State, young people can become human resources part of a production chain that generates prosperity in the economy, instead of just labor costs. Youth all around the world stop searching for jobs and are becoming discouraged or NEET’s (Not in Education, Employment or Training), which in Mexico have grown to be an impressive 23% of all young individuals, because they can’t find a good job.
With this policy we can benefit everyone involved: incentivate SME’s to continue in the path of formality, train and hire new people, grow the economy. Young people benefit by acquiring experience, pay and real-world training to make them fit for the job market increasing their chances of becoming employed and usefull for society, just as the Mexican Constitution mentions in its article number 123: Every individual has the right to a respectable and socially usefull job.
Policy like the NAS along with efficient and timely labor market information allows young people to choose the right profession, with the right curricular content according to their interests and the market’s needs, to take informed decisions about their futures. Executing this policy encloses many challenges, but its economic and social rewards will most likely offset the risks and costs involved.

El Martirio de comprar en línea con Bancomer y sus candados excesivos.

El Martirio de comprar en línea con Bancomer y sus candados excesivos.

Recientemente intenté comprar un boleto de avión en aeroméxico.com con una tarjeta de bancomer.
Error.
Al intentar realizar la compra, el sistema me redirigio a un supuesto anuncio sobre mi seguridad
donde bancomer me dice que tengo que registrar un sistema de alertas via celular

Posteriormente indica que debes llamar a un numero de telefono o hacer un registro via web a
banca en linea.

Debido a que yo queria comprar y no payasear con el banco en linea, decidí llamar al numero
creyendo ingenuamente que no tendria mayor inconveniente en registrar el servicio para comprar
mi boleto de avión.

Al llamar y escuchar un rosario de condiciones y detalles de un servicio que no me interesa,
al fin el operador me indico que debia ingresar a una computadora a registrarme a banca en linea...

Le dije que no me interesaba que solo queria comprar, pero me dijo que era por mi seguridad
y que ademas era el procedimiento. Acepte a regañadientes y continue con el proceso.
Algo que debió ser sencillo se convirtió en algo muy complicado.
El sistema me solicitó crear 3 claves: una clave de acceso, una clave de operaciones y
una pregunta y una respuesta secreta.

Intenté escribirlas todas, con miedo a olvidarlas, ya que intente comprar a través de una
netbook en un restaurante. Al final hice click en aceptar y el telefono se corto. Se terminó
mi crédito y no pude terminar de hablar con el operador de bancomer.
Luego, el sistema en línea me apareció que las claves tenian que tener cierto número de
caracteres y que no podian contener caracteres especiales. Las cambié, igual con el miedo de
olvidarlas, y el sistema me continuo diciendo que eran demasiado cortas. Mi frustración creció.
Yo quería un boleto de avión, no estas chingaderas...

finalmente me registró al sistema de banca en línea y volvi a intentar hacer la compra.
La tarjeta fue rechazada, aún no registraba las alertas a mi celular. !!!!!!

Cuando intenté ingresar al sistema de bancomer banca en línea, recibí una llamada y dejé para
otro día el boleto, el viaje para un familiar.

Muchas gracias Bancomer por hacerme la vida más sencilla. Se vé en que se gastan los
millones de dólares de utilidades que sacan de México.

(un familiar me intento ayudar pero salio lo mismo, termino pagando en sanborns. Gracias por destruir el comercio en linea, Bancomer!)