Listening to the radio yesterday (QLD ABC) I heard this guy saying it's time we pay senior wages from the age of 18, rather than 21.

So this will simply mean many will start work at 15/16/17, then loose their jobs at 18 and may never get another start as by the time the reach 25 they will have no or litte retained skills.

As a business owner myself, there are very few circumstances where i would employ an 18/19 year old, in favourmof a 25 year old, if i had to,pay the same rates of pay.

Besides, getting a License at 17to 20 is becoming increasingly more difficult for many.

It really is a no brainer, but let's try anyway and see what happens hey!

Its well known how so called small business underpays and exploits children. There are always those on the lookout for cheap labour even the big boys will if they can get away with it;
"Three companies and a director are being prosecuted for allegedly paying four Filipino workers less than $3 per hour in Australia." ABC News.
"As a business owner myself, there are very few circumstances where i would employ an 18/19 year old." so said rehctub. I'm sure you would have no problem with them going off and dieing in some foreign war for you, but give them a job, no way, not even a discount on a pork chop!

pay senior wages from the age of 18, rather than 21.
rehctub,
that would have had to be an academic expert making such a statement. Just think, such morons get taken up in the public service & become senior bureaucrats.

Nice rant Paul1405

Now, apply a little common sense then think about what I am saying, as whether it's fair, or unfair, is erelivent, the fact is, this will only add to the already problematic youth unemployment we have.

When I was a teenager we could leave school in December if we had a job, my old man worked at a smallgoods factory so I went to work with him, finished up after the Christmas rush and had about six hundred dollars to supplement my allowance through the school year. Pretty much all my classmates did it, even the factory owner's kids were dragged back home from Scotch and MLC to work through December.
Can kids still do that? Regardless of the job kids have to learn how to work, how to function in an adult workplace before they can take on a full time job, I've noticed that a lot of twenty somethings these days seem to lack that basic skill set, they don't know how to get on with other workers.

Yes Jay, us too, but we were more rural, & cherry picking. Many of the kids in 3Rd 4Th & 5Th year went cherry picking as soon as the exams were over.

The school threatened us with no intermediate certificate if we left before school closed, only just before Christmas back then. Or not letting us come back next year, but for those who needed money the draw of cherry picking was too great.

I was very a very fit young bloke, & used to hard work, we had our own small orchard as an extra money earner, & I did all the work. Dad worked full time so I did everything after school. Most of us that went picking were the athletes of the school, with lots of chores after school.

Cherry picking was piece work, paid by the bucket full. I worked hard 12 hours a day, but Paul, none of us kids could ever match the mature fruit pickers. Often we earned only half to 3/4 of what they did in the same time. We aspired to equal the top pickers, but never made it.

It is the same in industry. I know it is hard for academics & bureaucrats to realise, but business is not charity. It has to earn the money it pays in wages, & passengers can not be carried. If anything the age for full pay should be higher, not lower