Work practice hampering job market ???

[DMC]

I don't know specifically about catering courses but many vocational courses have a requirement that students do some sort of work placement as part of their studies. This can be done mid course. It is valuable because the student sees some application of their studies in the real world. After the work placement the student just returns to study more, graduating at some future date. Of course finding work placements can be difficult for students and colleges can have a list of tame companies at which they regularly place students who have not found a work placement of their own. I have seen this when teaching IT subjects, for example. Could it be the same situation in the restaurant?

[rinso]

Getting rid of a permanent employee who performs less than expected but is not a catastrophic fail is difficult and/or expensive.
By using trainees a restaurant owner can save his permanent places for the ones that are really good.
And as DMC already suggested, work practice is an obligatory part of a catering related study.

[Rosamunda]

One of my sons went through Perho (Helsinki Culinary School) and he did several of these placements. Most of the employers just rely on using these kids as slave labour. The working conditions are pretty bad and the kids are given very basic routine tasks with minimal supervision or training. If the kids were getting some kind of real supervision and training then it would be acceptable that they aren't paid, but in reality they aren't. For example, he did a placement with Elite and most of the time there was only one chef working in the kitchen (difficult to believe because it's a big place) and that guy was so insanely busy he could give no training or supervision. The best placement my son had was with the SAS Radisson Blu, they were a good employer (Sokotel group), really gave him a decent placement AND they gave him a permanent contract after he finished.

If a student wants to get a placement in a gastronomic restaurant with a celebrity chef, then they have to pay for the pleasure of doing so. And chances are, they still end up washing lettuce.

[DMC]

So you mean these tame companies always get free workers. Nice

Yes, they got a regular supply of "free" workers. Although they are not really free, even though there is no salary to pay. A student working on an IT project needs a lot of instruction on basic admin stuff like getting things into & out of the version control system, how to report bugs or bug fixes, the in-house coding style, loads of stuff depending on the work they are doing. Plus of course their work needs to be thoroughly checked. In many cases an experienced employee could do the job in less time than it takes to supervise the student. A new full-time worker needs the same investment to get them up to speed, but with the student the employer gets very limited time for payback, so it can be hard to convince an employer to take a student on such a placement.
Certainly the system is open to abuse, especially where the student can be given dross work with minimal supervision. I didn't see that happen in IT work but I guess it is possible.

if the IT education shifts students between work places in 3 weeks then I wonder what the student would learn.

3 Weeks is a short time and I didn't see such a short placement, but I'm not saying they can't happen. Even in 3 weeks though a student could learn something. Think of smaller jobs like bug fixes or testing bug fixes or writing MS Word macros or preparing spreadsheets. Doing anything constructive in a real work environment can be useful for many students.

anna.g, in the cases I saw I don't think anyone felt exploited. The students all seemed to gain from the experience and I think they would suffer if such placements became more difficult or impossible. I wouldn't expect a student who spent 3 weeks/months washing dishes to feel the same way of course but before launching your campaign it would be good to get some measure of the scale of any abuse and think how to prevent the abuse without creating problems for genuine cases. In my view the fault lies with the colleges for failing to ensure the students get meaningful tasks during their work placements.

[rinso]

I've been at both sides of the table (trainee and trainer). And my experience is that if the student is good and motivated (s)he gets meaningful tasks and good guidance.
(like DMC said; it cost the employer time)
But students that are not motivated or weak (often difficult to distinguish) get minor/boring tasks that require less supervision. Most employers are not happy with those kind of "free" students.

Off course the example from Rosamunda also happens. But that is often a indication of a poorly managed company or team.