Immigration, how did we get here?

In some countries the welfare state is much worse so people do not have a choice. People may bemoan amounts but there is something even if deemed not enough. Blair messed up with his idea that huge amounts should got to University. I was there just as this change was happening. By the time I retired the quality of the student population overall had declined and you just knew not all of them would end up with a graduate level job ever. I was not in a vocational subject. By the end I hated doing any work related to UG admission's because I felt like I was lying. DH is close to retirement he teaches in a vocational subject with really high employment rates and amazing salaries.

@Sugarsnapper your last paragraph rings true. HE is now in crisis both Universities I worked in are facing redundancies as is DH workplace. It’s going to be dire for those left behind.

If there's one thing I would like this government to try and tackle it's the attitude that manual labour is not worthy of respect.

We are desperate for good quality workpeople and for those who aren't academic it would be a far better idea for them to do something physical rather than going to university.

Man made industries have taken over traditional jobs- city, money jobs are entirely made my man to benefit the man for greed- she says working in an investment bank :)

Because workers rights within the UK and the rest of the world have been eroded into non existence over the last 40 years.

Unions, if there is one, have had their power stripped.
All the negotiations, battles, strikes and suffering our parents and grandparents went through to improve working conditions have been trumped by greedy tyrannical world leaders, multi million pound mergers, private corporations, share holders, CEO's and right down to Directors.
I should have been retired this year (60) but thanks to successive government enabling these conditions I've another 7 years of this.
The public were mis-sold the premise 'everyone should be able to attend university' and the carrot of achieving high earnings with their degree'.
Fact is, no, some are actually just are not cut out for it and a life of working your way up from the bottom is a more practical a viable way for them...
The utopia of the perfect work life balance is achievable - there's just different ways of going about it.
Ps. I'm all for immigration - it's a natural evolution of life. We just have to not exploit people with greed. If only life was this simple.

In the eighties when I had just left school it was rare for people to go to university. I went to grammar school and got good A levels, but went straight to work, as did most of my friends. We went into offices, banks, trades and started our working life at 18. Some went to university which they had a grant for. So we started living adult lives earlier.

a few years later it was promoted by the government of the time that everyone should aim to go to university. The polytechnics became universities and there was an enormous building programme with all sorts of new courses invented that children could take to get ‘the university experience’. Colleges promoted these courses and the kids who would have originally learnt a trade were persuaded that they would have a better future if they went to the new universities’.

the jobs that were once seen as good were looked down on and became hard to fill. We had to rely on Polish builders and Eastern European baristas to serve our coffee.

the vast university system kept churning out people with little work ethic and high expectations because they now had a degree and didn’t want to start at the bottom in what they considered menial jobs.

and here we are…

But, you're not allowed to do that, unless.your children are below a certain age.
Plus, 80% of childcare costs are covered.
The amount I can earn before the 55% deduction applies, is £93 a week. At minimum wage, that's 8 hours. There's no way Universal Credit would allow anyone claiming it, to work just 8 hours a week.

I recently had major surgery, and they phoned me the very next day, to say I hadn't done enough hours that month, and would need to look for a second job. They declined my fit note.

I don't know why people on Mumsnet perpetuate the myth that claimants are allowed to keep their hours low.

We've just come back from Northern Spain and most of the staff in our hotel we spoke to weren't local at all. Scottish, Irish, Polish, German, Hungarian, etc.

Because it's mimimum wage mostly. I find a lot of 'British' people look down on those people in these roles - it's awful. Then, theres some who don't want to work for a minimum wage role; never did well in school and expect £40k a year.

Sorry the rules have changed now, basically if you earn above a certain amount your UC will go down.
A lot of mums keep their hours lower so they don’t have the childcare costs and they can still claim UC.

How does that work in your area? Here if you aren’t working full time you must apply for work and if offered it take it or have your benefits docked.

In our area a lot of people particularly women don’t want to work too many hours because it will affect their Universal Credit.

Certainly in Italy, where I have friends, relatives and acquaintances, staffing issues are the same as here. They really struggle to find minimum wage staff, and have had to pay higher and higher rates. They are increasingly reliant on migrant workers.