Switzerland has been ranked No. 1 in international competitiveness, in part, because their maximum corporate tax rate of 18 percent is below the world average (the U.S. has a non-competitive 35 percent federal corporate tax rate — plus state corporate taxes).
Being the practical folks they are, the Swiss have created an apprenticeship program, which two-thirds of young adults choose. As a result, they learn a profession as employees of a company with on-the-job training coupled with two days a week in the classroom. After four years, they have basic professional qualifications. This has resulted in a youth unemployment rate of only 3.2 percent (a fraction of that in the United States and most European countries).
Great idea. Here, too many kids waste their time sitting in a classroom being disruptive, and when they graduate they can't even fill out an employment application.
England used to have a policy (perhaps they still do) that you could legally leave school at age 14-1/2 if you had an apprenticeship. We really need to look at some of these ideas for the United States. We have this notion here that everybody has to take up room in a classroom until at least age 17, and that everybody should strive to go to college. But that's not a fit for everybody.
Wished my school district would have done something like that. Richest in the state and everything was geared towards college prep which is great for those who were going.
I’d rather have learned something that would have gotten my foot in the door. The closest was either agriculture or auto mechanics. I took AM and it was the only class that was remotely useful in terms of life.
Yeah, they left out how well-armed the Swiss were, and still are.
Apprenticeship Program -> Children are relegated beginning in the 5th Grade (officially, normally a bit earlier) to one of three tiers - “College bound”, “business”, blue collar. Once relegated, it is VERY hard to move to a higher tier.
Only the “College Bound” attend high school. All others are forced to find an employer willing to fund three years of education, in a very specific field (e.g. Brick Layer, Butcher, etc...). There are never enough positions offered in any given year to accommodate all the children that need such a position. roughly 10% do not get any education after the ninth grade. Which in turn leads to them being unemployable. They never enter the work force / are registered as seeking employment and are thus not “unemployed”.
Youth Unemployment, defined as not working otherwise able to) is about 10% - for non-swiss ~16%.
Wages tend to be higher than in other countries, but the CoL is unbelievable -
The reason the Swiss are so much happier, everyone else is worse off! (and they know that the Banks are earning money on everyone else, which helps them in the long run).