Last weekend I spent an afternoon in Codsall, starting with a pub lunch at the Crown in the heart of the village. The Crown is a community-orientated pub that serves regulars across Codsall, Oxley, Perton and Tettenhall – it offers a great range of beers and a mouth-watering menu.
As I settled into my burger and chips (putting aside thoughts of the gym), I fell into conversation with a guy standing near my table, who I found out was waiting to start his afternoon shift as a barman. ‘Paul’ as I’ll call him (not his real name, to respect his privacy) lived in Tettenhall and worked at the Crown on a part-time basis.
We talked about the job market for local young people and Paul explained that he was waiting to hear back from the local fire service. He had submitted an application in November 2008, was accepted for initial training, but had been told in the meantime that cutbacks in public sector expenditure would delay his start-date. He was still waiting for the service to confirm that he might be able to start training in January 2010.
Paul explained that his girlfriend had recently been made redundant (her boss needed to create a vacancy for his own niece) and that he was noticing that even experienced pub managers were now applying for ordinary bar-staff positions. Most of his peer group were either travelling to work in Wolverhampton or Birmingham.
I listened to his story with a heavy heart. Reading today’s papers (see article here) only reinforces this feeling. I’ve outlined my thoughts on youth unemployment in another post (see article here). For now, I can only hope that the next time I visit the Crown, Paul will have better news to share with me.
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