Do people understand that many of us have lived through high periods of unemployment?

[marymarkle]

There are major issues for young people today with zero hour contracts and high housing costs. But I do get a bit fed up with comments that state that life is much harder for young people now that ever before.

I left school during the Thatcher year. Unemployment was very high and outside London whole communities were decimated by this, I still remember a classmate just before we left coming into school excited because they had secured a job in a factory. Jobs were very hard to get, reaching a peak of 10.8% unemployed in the early 1980's, and that was with them fidding the unemployment figures. And there was no MW, wages were often very very low. Yes house prices were cheaper, but that only benefited those already doing well.

I remember it as a very grim time in our country. While the City was booming and people earned massive bonuses, street homelessness soared, use of illegal drugs soared, as did crime. And many adults in their 50s who lost jobs during this time, never worked again. It was a grim time economically to be young.

*"Lots of people doing diplomas etc at polys were on day release."

Yeah try getting a job that does that now.*

That makes me really sad. So many of my friends got good careers by leaving school with A-levels, going straight to work, and doing prefessional qualifications on day release: they ended up being things like surveyors, accountants, civil engineers, environmental health officers, social workers. The public sector was particularly good at taking on bright young people and training them.

Those options are closed to people now, they have to be part of the 50% going to uni and being saddled with massive debts, and of course earning next to nothing until they're 21 or older.

Missing the main point
There isn't one!

I understand that 50% hasn't been reached but demanding that more jobs are now degree level and thus saddling students with debt they wouldn't have had (nurses, paramedics etc) is a disgrace.

And repaying that debt affects their borrowing capacity, making it even harder for them to buy a home.

I'd need proof to believe that Boris. It flies in the face of successive governments funding adult education.

In my working experience HNDs, all sorts of L2-5 qualifications are undertaken every year in most industries.

They are the bedrock of non school based provision of workforce education. As I said many are compulsory CPD others part if the old Investors in People certificate. From shop assistants to civil engineering there are a raft if such courses to be completed.

And when you had secured a job back then you could afford to live somewhere, rents were much more affordable as was transport & utilities.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

I've done a retail apprenticeship (mainly because I was bored and wanted to do something). Supposedly 1 day a week classroom training and then on the job training by my manager.

Well. Classroom training was useless. My manager was part time and worked opposite shifts and was new to the role as opposed to me having done it for 5 years. I didn't learn 1 single thing. All I did was formally record what I already new. All of this paid for by the government. Totally totally useless and a waste of money.

I wouldn't be trumpeting too loudly about some of these courses.

Weetabixandshreddies, I am not surprised. I sat on my companies panel to pick apprenticeship providers so that we can draw down on our apprenticeship levy.

What a shock. I was depressed to hear what people would get in the way of training. It was money for old rope. Anyone supposedly "learning" deserves more. It's shabby. The whole system I mean. The syllabus, the method of delivery, the "self recording" etc.

Money for old rope about sums it up.

There is no meaningful qualification or even learning. It is a tick box exercise so that someone somewhere can claim funding and then a government office can wax lyrical about in job training or something.

I think one of the problems is that some people only want to do X type of job, y miles from where they live, with z pay and w wages. Some people don't want to or cannot work flexible hours or commute a long distance. Secondly, there are places in UK where property is much cheaper than other places, but people don't want to move. There are now opportunities to work from home with the internet.

I think expectations increase with each generation too. The first house I bought had no inside toilet or hot water. I very much doubt anyone of Generation x or later would accept that!

But then we didn't expect to have TVs, microwaves or dishwashers. Never mind mobile phones, computers or laptops.

I also agree about University education. When I went, only about 5-10% of people did. It wasn't free either, as my Dad was supposed to make it up. He didn't, so I had to work part-time. As many of us did.

Encouraging over 50% of people to go to University was one of the worst decision we ever made. Now people feel they have to go, but end up deep into debt. And for what? Mostly a course that used to cost a whole lot less at a Poly! But no, they all had to become 'universities'. Academic snobbery at its worst. Much better when we had a wider variety that included day release at tech colleges, so people could work and study at the same time. The current apprenticeship scheme is nowhere near as good, as it's also based on 'academic' courses at 'universities' that are over priced and poor value. Always assuming you can even find an employer willing to pay.

I was born early 60's, first job late 70's, bought first house mid-80's. My parents were living in London during the Blitz and both were children during the depression and remembered practically starving. So I know what it used to be like.

The main difference as I see it, is that after the war, and up until the Thatcher years, the overwhelming majority of people lived in council houses, with low rents and security of tenancy. You got to the age of 16, went on the council's waiting list, and you'd eventually get to the top and get somewhere to live.

In the 80's houses were still fairly cheap in relation to earnings, and a lot of people got on the property ladder when they bought their council houses.

Now, people have these options:

Pay a small fortune to buy a property.

If they don't have a deposit, then they have to pay an even bigger fortune in rent, and in doing so, pay the landlord's mortgage off.

Live at home with parents.

Hope and pray for an elderly relative to die and leave them loads of money.

Try and get on the local council 'social housing' waiting list. If you even qualify to go on the list in the first place.

It is definitely not easy nowadays.

This thread is very relevant with Brexit looming. Many people are concerned that it will bring lower living standards and unemployment, but these things happen in cycles, and if anything those things made my generation stronger (baby boomer here).
We will weather the storm of any coming financial crisis if we have the right attitude.

I think expectations increase with each generation too

This ^^

It's very true. So many currently think life should be handed to them on a plate. They don't want to work, save, go without things etc in order to build up their life. They want somebody else to do it for them so they can have x number of chidren, live in an area they want and work little.

@marymarkle

My parents did own their house, but when my dad left we ended up on free school meals & clothes.

The point I was trying to make (badly) is that I found it relatively easy to get a job (in 1989) with hardly any qualifications, but I really don’t think children now will have the same opportunities.

So, how many of us know people who are either doing , or have completed, in the last 2-3 years, an employer financed HND?

My DS went to the local tech to do a level 3 BTEC, and was planning on doing an HND in the same subject, (computing). But as of this year, they don't offer it anymore so off to uni it was.

So this tech provide 3 or so 'Level 4' courses, in construction and accountancy as 'work release'.

There are few alternatives to a uni degree nowadays. And the apprenticeship scheme is a disgrace.

Apprentice barista, anyone? Serious find on the government's own apprenticeship finder.

BigBang, you read the Daily Mail, don't you?

They don't want to work, save, go without things etc in order to build up their life.

Do they?

My son has had part time jobs since he was 15. He now works circa 70+ hours a week for £23000. He pays nearly £900/ month rent for a bedroom, shower and kitchenette. He hasn't had a holiday in 4 years. He rarely goes out because he can't afford it. He saves as much as he can but that isn't much and often gets wiped out by maintaining his car (old, second hand) that he needs for work. Not seeing much of the entitlement that you refer to.

Would you like him to work more than 12 hours a day for 6 days a week?

mobyduck- as has already been made clear here is that more or less all previous financial messes were beyond teh control of 'the ordinary man'. They were caused by the rich and powerful playing games with our money.

This oncoming mess was self-inflicted, by a 1/3 of the population. And as for that 'make you stronger' bollocks, not if you can't afford to eat or your drugs run out.

Struggling to muster 'the right attitude', sorry.

Do you vote Tory?...

Weetabix - I can see that you, too, want to slap BigBang!

There's a queue forming!

I think expectations increase with each generation too

I would agree with this as I've witnessed it with my own dc peers. Ours have managed ok as we live in the NW and they don't expect too much. They start of with shells, learn how to do them up, make a profit and move on.
Both have noticed how they are further on than some friends who went for the bigger mortgage 3 beds all ready to move in.
In fairness now for some leaving home much later it's hardly worth starting off with a two bed terrace as they'll need bigger almost straight away if starting a family.

I'm wondering if that Socrates quote is coming up soon

I left school in 1986, went to college (having only got 4 O level and failed my A levels) and came out of that in 1988 and got a job as a nanny for a year (in London), saved up, moved out to another city, got a job as a Christmas temp with a large high street retailer, rented a house with a mate and I worked my way up in that job and when I left nine years later I was 'Personnel Manager' with my own flat (aged c29 I guess).

I sometimes worked three jobs at once though. Especially when interest rates were high.

Here I am, 20 years later, earning c£85kpa with my 3-bed house all paid for. All by me, I've almost always been single or at least self-supporting even if I was in a relationship.

Yes, I think youngsters today do have it harder. BUT, when I was going through it, it did still seem very hard and older people were telling me that it was so hard for youngsters. Every time I have bought a property (4x) people have said 'are you sure now is the right time to buy, there's about to be a crash/interest rates are about to go up...' etc.

But I look at my nephew and niece and there's no way they could buy their own properties now and they are older than I was when I did.

And there were zero hour contracts then, I managed them at the retailer I worked at - we called them 'flexi mum contracts' and they were very beneficial to the people who were on them.
Where they went wrong was 1) employers demanding exclusivity (which I think has now been banned) and 2) the govt changing the way benefits work so that they push you into a zero hours contract and then refuse to pay JSA because you've 'got a job'. UC in theory would address this but sadly it's been a total disaster!

Miljah: I do.

It was 1987 and I'd completed my time on YTS (youth training service... It was the apprenticeship of its day). I'd been kicked out of my foster parents n dumped in a real shitty bedsit, social services washed their hands of me.

I spent from 87 to 93 officially unemployed, and we called ourselves, the Maggie club! Due to their bei g such high unemployment under Maggie's "yuppies" and privatisation of so many government departments... Transport, energy to name a couple.

I didn't spend my time just hanging around tho. I did a course in.computers (got a distinction, even tho before the course, I'd never turn on a pc before) a labourer for a charity, maintenance for a hostel (do work, and get free board n food.. old saying... 3 hots n a cot) a HND in photography, and sometime just unemployment.

I did several agency jobs (sometimes an odd day, and others were for weeks) from 1993 until 2002.

2002 to 2010, I worked in a call center, taking calls for several different companies.

26 February 2010, I had to finish work due.to.ill health n MH (Mental Health) and I haven't worked since. I've struggled to be taken serious and that even tho (for most of that time, I was single) things hurt, I did them, no one else was going to go.to a supermarket for me!

I'm still reliant on benefits almost 9 years later, and i hate it.i hate not having enough money to live. When I did work, I worked for good money, and it carried me across quiet times. I'd love to work, and earn a decent wage that would support myself n my fiancée.

Never judge a book by its cover, as it may surprise you!