Are young people trained to enter the labour market?

A survey by British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) - and which is made echo the BBC--shows that young people lack job skills such as communication or ability to work in team. In the study, which was attended by 3,000 companies, stressing that nine of every ten students who abandon studies are not prepared to enter the labour market, and the same goes for half of those who graduate.

With these results, managers of the institution have requested that all British secondary education students made practices in enterprises, while the Ministry of education has made public that it will boost measures that promote cooperation between schools and businesses.

Three of every four companies that responded to the survey blamed this data to the lack of work experience of young people, and more than half (57%) stressed that new generations lack even basic skills like communication. However, 50% of the interviews companies lack jobs practices by monetary issues and time (25%), by excessively bureaucratic (23%) or lack of information (22%).

Other interesting facts are that, because of this lack of preparation, more than one quarter of enterprises (27%) indicate that not recruited young workers (between 16 and 24 years old) in the last year and only 39% offered practices. An additional 32% arises to offer them in the future, while 54% said that if additional training is subsidized they would encourage to engage more young people.

Leaders of the Chambers of Commerce have also recommended that all students have the opportunity to study modules in business and entrepreneurship as part of his studies required to encourage and train potential entrepreneurs and business people from a more diverse academic range.

More efficient workers sleep between seven and eight hours

A study published last September in the journal Sleep, and of which echoed The New York Times, confirms the need for sleep between seven and eight hours to perform effectively in the workplace.

The research, carried out in Finland analyzed, for a period of seven years, sleep habits and days off in 3,760 people, 1,875 women and 1,885 men. Their ages were around, when he began the study, 30 to 64 years.

The main conclusion is that the days are associated with worker sleep habits: obviously, those who cannot sleep well (for insomnia and other disorders) were those who stayed at home most days and could not go to work, especially those who sleep five hours or less.

But, paradoxically, those who slept for many hours more (at least 10), also missed many days. Both groups could not go to work between 5 and 9 days more than the so-called optimal sleeping, those that rest between seven and eight hours per night.

Workers that less missed, according to the research, were the women who slept an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes per night and the men who made it a little more: 7 hours and 46 minutes.

The most cited frequent causes were related to insomnia, early morning awakening, symptoms be more tiring day than people of the same age, use of sleeping pills, excessive day dream, probably sleep apnea and report on changes in the sleep duration in the different seasons of the year.

The authors of the study, from the Finnish Institute of occupational health, Department of public health at the University of Helsinki and the National Institute of health and welfare, conclude that it is essential to prevent alterations of sleep and promote an optimal duration of night rest to prevent the sick leave.