Originally posted by Ghengis the Engineer
Advertise for a scientist (which I do fairly regularly) and you get 60+ applications for each job as well.
Overpopulation? Or maybe scientists all just want to work for you Ghengis? Pressumably the number of people looking for work will keep increasing from now on as the global population continues to rise.
Most employers of educated professionals are taking graduates with £30+k debt, built up over 3-5 years at university, and only doing the final stages of on-the-job (line!) training. It's only unskilled or semi-skilled jobs nowadays where employers provide the main part of the training. McDonalds, Timsons and the production line jobs in the local factory!
Well firstly most students have a student loans option which is not provided for professional pilot training. So there is one big difference there. You just cannot compare £30+k student loans company debt with personal loans or credit of a similar or greater value from a bank.
Train drivers/ operators, and bus drivers are trained by the operating companies. I'm not sure about how sailors are trained for passenger ferrying or cruise ships.
Like the armed forces do you mean?
Yes. Staff turn-over may be high when you have no freedom and are likely to be the first guy off the boat to get shot at, but since these are not concerns for pilots why not? If airlines ran their own selection and trained all their own pilots at their expense for fixed term contracts (like the armed services) then there would not be so many people who have paid their own training only to find out that no one wants to employ them after it.
I don't disagree with most of your points Ghengis, I was merely suggesting an alternative to what we currently have. No one can do very much about overpopulation but we can think about ways to prevent people spending £30+k for training as a professional pilot only to discover they can then fly for another £30+k with Ryr and maybe after 6 months be replaced by someone else with a credit line of his own.
If airlines recruit their own staff. They'd get what they wanted from the start. They'd know how the candidate was trained and they'd know more about them and their suitability. Competition would be fierce but those that failed would not have done so with a lifetimes worth of debt, and we would not have rich people flying RHS, when there are better pilots for the job.
That's my alternative although it is probably just as workable as a start-up pilot run airline!
