Report comment

Re. "Surely, a trainee is a long term investment, not an immediate profit centre; at least that’s how I have always viewed them. Some move on and some stay, but that’s life. "

My impression is that trainees are more of a 'flight risk' nowadays, hence firms are understandably reluctant to invest in them. Certainly in the City, if you look at people's CVs on LinkedIn, you can see extensive lateral moves both (a) on qualification; and (b) at about 2-3 year's PQE.

This reflects: (a) a wider societal trend away from an employer-for-life and towards portfolio careers; (b) many people 'dropping out' of the workforce to pursue what in the US was called the 'Mommy track' of child-rearing and part-time/in-house work; and (c) US firms which have accurately assessed that they don't need to train their own NQs, when they can simply rely on the Magic Circle to do it for them, and then poach them.

I think the old paradigm is dead.