When Morrisons planned a new store in the employment black spot of Salford, it promised to give jobs to local youngsters.
Of the 210 staff who will start work when the store opens tomorrow, half left school with not a single GCSE to their name. Morrisons sent back 150 of them for three to six months of remedial training including refresher courses in literacy and numeracy.
Garry Stott, the chairman of Create, a social enterprise where “excluded” individuals practice working in a not-for-profit café and call centre. said the main problem was school-leavers whose parents and grandparents who had never worked and lacked the aspiration to work.