To think the current Government is either stupid or delusional in its expectations re "economically inactive" people?

[Juliette20]

news.sky.com/story/priti-patel-attacked-over-clueless-claim-that-inactive-britons-will-fill-job-vacancies-11937918

Apparently "economically inactive" people are the answer to the massive hole in the labour market being created by leaving the EU and Government immigration policies.

There are 8 million people who fall into this category. Ok. But:

• 26% of this group are disabled/long term sick.

• 22% are full time students

• 13% have taken early retirement

• 11% are people who have just left a job and are awaiting the results of job applications, or don't need to work

• Not sure how many people are carers for relatives- but other data suggests about 7 million people - some of these will be working as well, of course.

It leaves very few people, and people don't necessarily want short term work like fruit picking.

The unemployment rate is current 3 - 4%

Priti Patel, get real, your figures do not stack up.

@Purpletigers - it's not about being lazy.
The low-paid workers from Eastern Europe would be coming from countries where their currency has a much lower value, hence for them, they were working for more because they can afford more for the money in their own countries.
They were also willing to offer huge sacrifices in terms of accommodation - living in a house and sharing a room with three other people for example or nutrition, for the sake of sending more money home. In general, they would have been used to a more modest life because if you came from let's say rural Romania, even a small British town would seem like 50 years ahead of anything they've known in their everyday life.
Same goes for example for Roma community from Czechia or Slovakia, who used to work in poultry slaughterhouses and processing factories. They could build a house in their village for the money they earned here because they set up their life to live frugally in Britain.
It's all about a different mindset. It's also a mindset that's set to a survival mode because you simply think and organise your life differently when you are an outsider. It's also probably why so many former immigrants are more unforgiving towards the more recent ones. It hardens you up, you feel like if you've been there on your own, others should to. Also, it makes you not want to be a part of the outsider community again because even in the second generation you'll be still the odd one out for others while you have known nothing else yourself.

My DH is in this category. He's highly skilled but partially sighted. So needs retraining, specialist kit so he can see and driving everywhere.

I don't think anyone is going to hire him as a fruit picker. FFS.

Sorry - typo.. It is a myth that NOT mythin

That's fine if you have parents or spouses who are happy and able to do that. Not fine if the expectation is that The State pays.

That's what economically inactive usually means, they are not in paid employment but not on the dole. Of course, the state pays pensions, so make no mistake, Patel and her merry band of fascists are well aware of this and plan to use it to their advantage.

They were also willing to offer huge sacrifices in terms of accommodation

And able to do so because they came on their own. If they had families those families stayed in the home country with someone else caring for them.

Eerie - you are right about the costs and mindsets of some of the lower paid workers who came from other EU countries. For richer countries it was often a case of a poorly educated 18 year-old Brit or a 45 year old unskilled worker with health issues competing for an entry-level job with a German/French/Spanish bright, capable tri-lingual university graduate who could afford to work for low wages as it was worth it to perfect the language.

How can people who live in cities, possibly with young families, be made to travel miles and miles to do short term farm labour jobs? I assume the people who travel here to work got accommodation close by. How would that work for people who are already housed in the UK?

SORT OF agree.

There are many economically inactive people who can't work/shouldn't have to work (because of disability or still have young kids at home.) or are retired.

But let's not kid ourselves that there aren't 10's of thousands of people who are languishing at home, on the dole at the taxpayers expense, when they COULD work. We all know a few people like this. So THIS type can step up, and fill in for the jobs left when the points-based system.

And as a few posters have said, NO-ONE is too good for so-called menial jobs!

*when the points-based system kicks in!

And able to do so because they came on their own....families stayed in the home country with someone else caring for them.

So why is this not OK for UK citizens then?

@InTheSummerhouse
that long term sick cannot work and SAHMs cannot work

The long term sick are by definition too sick to work.

Are you really trying to argue on mumsnet that SAHMs don't work? That childcare, caring for an elderly/sick parent and running a household by SAHP isn't important VITAL work? Is the state going to pay for 24 hour childcare whilst the SAHP is at work? Are they going to provide care at home for the elderly? No, thought not.

They're bastards who intend to force people to work whether they like it or not. I picked strawberries on a local farm in the summer when I was a teenager for £1 an hour. Now I'm older and disabled it takes every ounce of energy I have to pick them from the shelf in the supermarket. No amount of training or salary is going to get me out in the fields again.

Porcupineinwaiting - it is ok for UK citizens to have someone else caring for the family but the relative costs of that in the UK comepared with some other countries mean it is not affordable.

InTheSummerhouse, I agree. Fine to opt out of working if you can self support taking no tax payers money but if you can’t then of course work should be expected. Obviously some will be too ill to work but that’s what he welfare state is there for.

I don’t think people will suddenly develop a work ethic, benefits would have to get much tighter on criteria, length etc to get many back into the workforce.

But let's not kid ourselves that there aren't 10's of thousands of people who are languishing at home, on the dole at the taxpayers expense, when they COULD work. We all know a few people like this.

Oh, bullshit! NO, we don't 'all know a few people like this'. The long-term unemployed and claiming is quite low. And she's not just talking about them, but about economically inactive people, who are not on benefits. Unless you count state pension as a benefit.

So why is this not OK for UK citizens then?

Because our cost of living isn't as low as it is in Romania, Porcupine. Duh.

@Aposterhasnoname you are deliberately conflating minimum wage jobs and slavery which is still a big problem. My DM worked MW, she wasn’t a slave.

There is a big difference between people having their passports confiscated and working in a nail bar or car wash for no money or having money deducted for bullshit reasons to keep them tied to the job (usually illegals) and people who willingly work as baristas, pick fruit seasonally and work in hotels. The majority of EU workers are not desperate and of need of rescue, many of them are bi or even trilingual and are here to make good money relative to what they can make in their home country. If you knew any EU workers or immigrants (I’m related to some) in general you’d know this.

And you do know this but are being obtuse so I’ll let you crack on and skip past your BS posts and will focus on those which make sense because I’m tired and don’t have the time to pick sense out of the nonsense in your posts.

@Porcupineinwaiting - uprooting your whole family for the sake of a seasonal job or leaving them for the week to come back for weekends requires a lot from someone with a settled life.
You have to consider the cost of the rent/mortgage, find new schools, new childcare arrangements, cost of transport unless you take on the wonderful offer of living in a bungalow with no running water somewhere on the farm. If you are one person who moves for weekly jobs, you need to add the cost of the double housing into the budget. Then you need to start thinking about where that leaves you financially and family-wise. While you can afford doing it with your family living somewhere in rural Poland or Romania, it's much more expensive maintaining a double household or uprooting your family within the UK.

My son in law is a plumber working in London, he’s not had a pay rise in years because his employers just keep taking on cheap labour from Eastern Europeans.

I get so fucked off with things like this, especially business kicking off about the points-based immigration system. If you want people to do the shit jobs then you have to pay them a decent wage. This country has been taking advantage of immigrants who will do the crap jobs for minimum wage - sort out a proper "living wage", get rid of zero hours contracts and give people decent levels of holiday/sick pay, etc. and there won't be any staffing issues. Businesses have the law on their side when it comes to giving workers decent benefits so the government needs to tackle this issue so people aren't treated as commodities/disposable.

Gawd, people are so dense they are missing the whole point: economically inactive and specifically she states 'the retired, students and those with caring responsibilities'. NOT dole claimers!

Read that again, folks, the retired.

Because as Eerie points out they are laying the framework and the sheeple will buy it because they're so spiteful, mean-spirited, short-sighted and thick. They will soon make out that people on state pension are benefits claimants and those who have no other way to support themselves on a private pension should be made to 'earn their benefits' by plugging the gaps left by Europeans who leave.

Make no mistake.

This is not about C5 bollocks programmes but about 'Poor students who need to take out the maximum loan (remember it's not a grant now, it's loans) to go to uni, well, you also need to pick fruit or wipe arses to get it'. 'Retired and still able-bodied, you'll need to come pick strawberries or hoist dementia patients onto the toilet.'

This is their aim! They believe everyone should 'work like the Chinese' or they are 'lazy' (except themselves, of course).

How you can't see this is beyond me. Fucking hell.

@restawhile77 - funny enough, "native" plumbers are earning some really good money around here if they are really good at their jobs. Get lots of customers. Sometimes it's not about the right to increased salary but what you offer for it.

To say that students cannot work and that long term sick cannot work and SAHMs cannot work is accepting that someone else has to support these groups

I was pointing out the nonsense of it though - students are classified as economically inactive when in fact many do work seasonally or part time, so they aren't available for other work as the Government seems to think. I used to work in a shop all summer- funnily enough there wasn't a lot of fruit picking work in Manchester!

EerieSilence Hes excellent at his job thank you, works subcontract for a huge firm, installing heating systems in new offices. His employers don’t feel the need to give them pay rises because they can get EEs to do it cheap. Is he supposed to be happy about that?

Such a ridiculous oversimplification. My friend was made redundant from her £60k/year job. She had mortgage insurance which paid out to cover the mortgage while she was not working, but she needed to sign on for jobseeker's allowance in order to activate the insurance (despite not needing the £60/week as it was then, but needing the mortgage to be paid from the insurance). She had regular meetings with the dole office who would question why she wasn't applying for minimum wage jobs in the local shoe shop or bakery. If she took a minimum wage job her insurance would stop paying out but she wouldn't be able to cover her repayments and would lose her house. Who would make that choice?!

Sincerely doubt Priti Patel would be handing out her CV in the local care home or fruit picking field if she found herself out of office!

@tellmetruth4

I’m not mixing anything up, unlike you I know what I’m talking about. It’s clear you’ve not bothered your arse to look into it, so allow me to help.

People in Eastern European countries are offered work in the U.K. they are brought over, trafficked would be a better description, then placed in shit awful shared accommodation. They are of course charged for the transport and accommodation, but no worries, their friendly trafficker will deduct it from their wages.

The trafficker then helps them, often acting as a translator, filling in paperwork etc, to get set on at reputable companies doing minimum wage jobs such as factory work, or hotel cleaning. Their wages are paid into a bank account controlled by the trafficker. They are then given a tiny amount, less than £20 a week in most cases, to live on. The test is taken by the trafficker to pay the ongoing costs, plus interest ov their shit housing. They can seldom complain as they speak little English, and often theirs a “handler” working at the same company watching them. The company are usually blissfully unaware. If the try to escape they are beaten and their families at home are threatened.

This is part of my job. I have been directly involved with people caught up in this. Seen first hand their terror. I’ve never been so angry in my life to see the statement “they are all building big houses back home”

This is so prevalent that all major companies in the at risk sectors (I’m food manufacturing) have someone like me trained to spot the signs of slavery, and what to do about it. It’s not all dodgy cockle picking gangs.