THE computer revolution of the last decade has focused the ambitions of our young people on careers in technology.

Schools have been quick to equip themselves with computers and all kinds of technology while colleges have launched courses to provide highly specialist electronic training.

At the same time apprenticeships in traditional trades like plumbing, plastering and other skills associated with the building industry have fallen out of favour as teenagers look elsewhere.

They scramble to pursue careers in a world of computers, mobile phones, the internet and microchips seeing the keyboard as the key to a worthwhile future in a dust free environment.

Jobs that involve working on muddy building sites are no longer the popular choices that they once were.

As a result many self employed tradesmen have found it difficult to find youngsters to take on and train up to follow in their footsteps.

And today we hear that Portuguese workmen have had to be drafted in to pave Blackburn's newly pedestrianised Church Street a century after homemade cobbled streets were everywhere.

The Portuguese were apparently brought in after dissatisfaction with the standards of workmanship of an earlier native crew.

As the managing director of the firm of contractors said: "What we needed was someone who can produce a high quality standard of work in a relatively short space of time. Not many people in this country can do that."

But recently we have seen big job losses in high technology industries where growth has failed to live up to expectations and some youngsters have found themselves with skills which they cannot sell.

The lesson is to ensure that we train our young people for jobs which exist by offering a wide range of skill paths and realistic careers advice.