Young people in the UK have it tough

I’m afraid it’s becoming a dog-eat-dog world, where the billionaires safely and quietly continue to amass wealth out of the public eye, and the rest of us start fighting over the scraps.

Realistically it’s a situation no government can completely fix. It’s like they’re in charge of feeding the five thousand with loaves and fish. We argue about how to split the loaves and fish and who should get more and why, and how we can individually catch more fish, while the sea is being trawled by oligarchs who aren’t sharing anything back.

Yes they were exploited, but they were better than nothing, which is what we have now.

1.8 million jobs have been lost as a direct result of Brexit. Brought to us by the Tory government and campaigned for by Reform

YOP,YTS schemes were exploitation£25 a week that was shit even by early 80s standards.1st year apprentices were generally paid £40 a week at the time.

You're not wrong

A few years ago I would have agreed with all of this. But given the direction of the EU I don't think your kid's passports will do all that much good unfortunately.

Lots of these are small businesses and are wary of making a commitment to a kid for a 3 year period.

The old YTS scheme did actually support businesses take kids on without too much risk of having to pay wages in the lean weeks.
As much as many felt it was exploited it did actually do something

Thats scary.
I'm terrified for my teen. Watching cousins with degrees doing pub jobs is hardly encouraging to get him to study for exams.

I've felt for years a lot of issues in rough area schools is due to lack of hope, lack of seeing education as the way out.
It can't be long before even the nice schools are the same.

Exactly

I do think more apprenticeships would help. We need more skilled trades people. I've struggled to get electricians, plasterers and plumbers, of late; they're all fully booked up, even at premium rates. For all the threads on here about tradies being dirty, exploitative theives, they are necessary, and should be valued.

It's quite obvious: millions of people willing to work for less wages than existing workers does OF COURSE suppress wages and will OF COURSE take up housing. It is very simple to understand, for some reason the young support this state of affairs then complain that life is hard. You have to laugh!

Retirement age being pushed up.
Women used to retire at 60
Men 65
They are both now 66

While people might be living longer, they aren't necessarily in good health.

Just three years ago I had a good STEM career doing one of those "skills shortage" jobs. I was so proud of myself.

☹️

Yes it's really worrying. I have teens & I'm worried about their future

Meanwhile I was made redundant at age 38! I'm now almost 40 and can't find work. I've tried cafes, supermarkets, pubs, office work, the career I used to have - nobody is hiring.

It's really scary!

The fallback jobs (TA, supermarket and admin at the council and NHS = they are not hiring. In fact the NHS, council and schools local to me are actually making people redundant too!)

So many cafes, chippies and pubs are closing down.

Not quite. I remember the recession from 1990 when all the graduate jobs were pulled, people went into negative equity etc. Until then, people had ‘jobs for life’ , but managers etc were all loosing their jobs and people established in their careers were all being made redundant, a situation that hadn’t happened before, and redundancies were almost considered shameful then.

its much more accepted to flit between jobs today, and a period of redundancy is considered par for the course.

i work for a local authority and have for a decade - they’re deleting hundreds, maybe thousands by the time they’re finished, of jobs and downgrading even more. Those worst affected are majority early 60s and under 35, particularly those who can’t retire early due to working in a low paid role all their lives and who have just finished an apprenticeship. Worst of all is it’s not being branded as mass scale redundancies, so no voluntary early retirement and only basic voluntary redundancy. The published materials about the change make it very clear that these jobs are being replaced by AI.

I clawed my way up into a flexible hybrid low/ mid management type role through changing jobs every year and doing every type of training possible up until I had my DC 3 years ago and had cancer the year after. I can no longer work like I used to & am part time and terrified that I’ve been targeted for downgrading because of those things. It feels most unfair as others on my grade but slightly different job titles (one who my manager tasked me to spy on!) are absolutely crap or want to be downgraded to have less responsibility - aren’t in scope. This is due to the redundancy teams’ AI categorising job descriptions incorrectly, so now I have to appeal. God knows if it will make a difference. I have applied for PIP based on the impacts cancer has had on me, declined by two points. I’m absolutely knackered and so anxious I feel sick all the time.

No wonder the birth rate is declining so rapidly, why would anyone feel comfortable having more babies in this kind of situation!

Every generation has it's own challenges. I hope there's a way through this current one, with changing global markets and uncertainty.

Surely it's of their own making though?

How can it possibly be of their own making? They’re not old enough to be responsible for the state of the economy, lack of social housing, automation or a job market with jobs requiring degrees that were once done with O level education.

I think property is an interesting one - also when it stopped being about buying property rather than a home. Selling off Council housing, right to buy, etc. it created something very different, which was supposed to benefit the majority, but of course didn't.

It's almost as if they can see immigration isn't the real problem, isn't it? 🤔

it was easy to buy, a worker could expect to be able to buy a property almost anywhere in the uk.

the BOE interest rate was circa 12% in of work easier in 90/91, by 92 it was 6% where it stayed for the rest of the decade. So there might’ve been a high rate for 10% of the 20 golden years 🤨

Surely it's of their own making though?

For decades we have voted in parties that allowed mass immigration that has both undermined pay and taken available housing stock. No good them complaining when the young are more likely to support mass uncontrolled immigration than the older generation (just look at how the young support The Green Party and their uncontrolled immigration policy).

When I was in recruitment low level jobs paid £30k but we had 70% applications from people in Italy, Portugal, Spain, Poland offering to do those jobs for £16-18k. Thus massivekly depressing wages here whilst also taking up accommodation.

The young predominantly support such uncontrolled immigration and then whinge when there is a price to pay for it through depressed wages and shortage of housing. It's all completely predictable but they cannot see it.

My mortgage rate in 1990 was 17.5%

I left school at 17 (neglectful upbringing and I was allowed to make stupid decisions for myself) and I was able to enter work in an admin role. I managed to work my way up from there to a £40,000 a year PA job. That was 15 years ago, a decent salary for someone with only GCSEs. I don’t think this would be possible now. I know for sure that the companies I worked for (Pru, M&G etc) now require degree level quals for entry level work!

https://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/analysis/the-repossession-crisis-then-and-now/