Young people should be encouraged to drop “soft option” degrees in favour of vocational courses to help solve the country’s employment crisis, Alexander McCall Smith has said.
The author argued that companies in hospitality and retail were being driven towards insolvency because graduates regarded the work as not worth the effort.
The writer of The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency said there was no mystery over why businesses were struggling. Writing in Scottish Field magazine, McCall Smith, 74, said: “We don’t seem to have enough people willing and able to take the work on offer.”
He suggested a lack of affordable housing might, in part, be responsible for the problem, but added: “Another reason could be that 18 and 19-year-olds are just not interested.”
