to think the government are on a hiding to nothing with their drive to get people back to work?

[molokoco]

On the Today Programme in Radio 4 this morning they had a segment where they were talking about "worklessness" in the UK and the number of unfilled vacancies and how the government wanted to push two large groups back into the work force the 18-24 year olds who are not working due to mental health issues and the over 50's who have dropped out of work in the past four years for a variety of reasons and who perhaps have the funds not to have to to work anymore.

They had a man on in his early 60's who was made redundant from what sounded like a highly paid business / finance type career in the city 4 years ago, he had initially applied for 100's of jobs over the next few years and was rejected he seemed to suspect due to his age. He work as a postman for a spell before he finally mentally came round to the idea of retirement. Obviously this man had the funds but so do a lot of the people retiring in their 50's either have that or their health is so poor they can no longer work while they wait endlessly for hospital appointments and treatment.

When I try to look at the kind of jobs that have the most vacancies in the UK the information I am seeing is things like hospitality, construction, manufacturing, agriculture workers and so on. It doesn't seem likely to me that someone who was previously in a high flying career but now feels pushed out due to ageism or someone with health issues is likely to want to take a job in any of those areas which likely involve some mix of heavy work, anti-social hours, low pay and a degree of precarity and perhaps not much in the way of long term prospects.

The man on the radio had applied for 100's of jobs within his field of experience and he would have kept working if he had landed one but it seems like well paid, jobs with good career prospects are still over subscribed with lots of people applying for that kind of work so employers will have their pick and ageism in recruitment is a known issue.

They had a Doctor on to discuss the mental health crisis in the young but he wasn't very coherent, he did mention about improving nutrition, exercise and prescribing gardening to people with mental health issues and suggested that when people go on the sick with poor mental health and spend a few weeks at home watching daytime TV then they will feel worse. I am sure he had a point but gardening isn't a substitute to getting proper mental heath treatment, it is part of that sure but I think young people need more than that and that the things that seem to be behind the rise in depression, anxiety and hopelessness need to be addressed more widely. I also think that while younger people in good health may be more able to do the kind of work in hospitality or construction where the vacancies actually are the problems with these jobs still remain that they are often hard, heavy jobs, they can be low paid, antisocial hours and with fewer prospects in the long term.

It is sad to see people, especially young people drop out of the workforce right at the time their lives should be starting or for older people to feel pushed out due to their age or poor health but a few tax breaks isn't going to make an ex-executive or ex-teacher suddenly want to take a job on a building site or as a chambre maid and a few gardening sessions isn't going to make up for the utter lack of mental health care and magically cure young people of their anxiety or despair in a world where a home and a family seem so far out of reach.

@Frequency you can train as a MH nurse if you already have a degree-it’s a permitted second degree. You can claim full time student finance plus bursary which works out around £16k a year tax free. On top of that you can claim UC of you have kids up to your applicable amount (again MH nursing is a permitted degree for UC). SF covers some childcare and there’s an extra bursaries too for dependents and childcare too. On top of that, many student nurses also work bank shifts as support workers/HCAs as student nurses are automatically accepted for bank work. Please please consider it; we need you 🙏❤️

I agree and could easily have gone that way myself. I remember the days when I was living with my parents and working I used to wonder why I was bothering as it didn't seem to be achieving anything. In my case I got lucky and my LDR and I were able to move somewhere cheaper and the money I'd saved went towards a house deposit. If we'd split up then those years working would have been a complete waste of time because I'd never have been able to afford to live where I worked.

Back then people asked me "but don't you want to contribute to society?" and the problem with that is that you don't even feel like a part of society in that situation so why would you care about that?

@JamSandle I’ve got several friends around my age who have looked for jobs,but now given up. Combination of high expectations on job descriptions, very low wages and no flexibility on hours. And I suspect ageism too. They’ve decided they can live on less and have no mortgage to pay.

I genuinely would love to but my eldest is 19 and the youngest is 17, so I don't get UC for the eldest and will stop getting it for the youngest soon despite them both still being financially dependent on me.

Re the anger at people not working in their 50s, my best friend's parents retired in their 50s and realised very quickly that they needed to lie about it, or face an onslaught of criticism. I don't get the problem either.

@SerendipityJane We're talking at cross purposes. I'm not saying it didn't fall. I'm saying I'm puzzled that people mention it so often.

Most Nurses are leaving or hugely reducing hours in their mid 50's as soon as they can take their NHS pension.

That’s what I did. Now working in an information role for a Charity part time.
but the Charity is now struggling unfortunately

I will keep my contribution brief. My two unemployed young adult sons desperately need support to enter the workplace, but our local authority has not got the resources to provide this.

I have worked with people on traineeships and in voluntary roles, and although these are good work experience opportunities, they rarely lead to paid employment, and young people with additional needs tend to go on a round of employability courses, voluntary employment and so on, until they drop out of the system

I had to leave full time employment outside the home due to overwhelming caring responsibilities. I managed to pick up some online work, a combination of gig economy roles, zero hours contract and finally a more permanent opportunity. I should be looking forward to retirement, but I cannot see this happening until I am no longer capable of working, simply because, as the only wage earner in the family, I cannot afford to retire.,

My husband is now too debilitated to work, but he was also supported substantially by my earnings. I fear the number of economically inactive people, especially young people and older people, is much higher than is estimated, because a large number of people in this category will live with their families and claim nothing.

Economic inactivity is a huge problem in this country, and very vulnerable, hard to employ, people are largely affected. People who retire early, or young people who are finding their feet after school or university are not the problem.

One of the problems for the over 50’s is the physical nature of the work. Nursing , teaching ( wrecked me physically) care work, etc.

I think if some of this was recognised it would be better. But it’s just ignored. My friend retired from teaching as she physically couldn’t do it anymore at 57. Another friend stopped care work as she was wrecked by it at 55.

Its never acknowledged how physically demanding these jobs are. I don’t know any teachers still working in their 60’s. Carrying round huge pipes of books/ marking/equipment etc

nursing police, not sure what else, you used to be able to retire at 55

See with the retirement age going up I wonder if that could be scaring some people off the more physically demanding jobs. Better to get into something your body can cope with in the long run maybe.

If the government want more over 50s to thrive at work they need to consider addressing:

• ageism: the elephant in the room is that many employers prefer to hire younger people because they are seen as a cheaper and easier to manipulate/more likely to put up with the latest management bullshit option
• lack of flexible working options. I really don't understand why so many employers still have issues with flexible working (part-time, jobsharer, home working. Not to mention the government trying to force people back into offices. It is no counter-productive. Many people with disabilities, long term health issues, care responsibilities and so would be able to stay in the workplace is flexible working was more available.

Basically the government needs to do more work to promote flexible working and hiring older employees.

UK workplaces seem to have become more toxic it seems to me: low wages yet high expectations, understaffing, unreasonable workloads and lack of willingness to train and develop staff. No wonder we have low productivity and high level of staff sickness.

Covid and long NHS waiting list made the situation worse as we have people who can't work because they have to wait for operations for months if not years and others who are suffering from long covid.

I am the oldest person in my team (53), I have a long term health condition (protected characteristic) and I work part time:

• I have been excluded from training opportunities and promotions
• had a few ageist comments
• I am expected to do a full time workload on 3 days a week and have had to take on responsibilities beyond what I was initially asked to do
• I was hired on the promise I could work from home the majority of the time with requirement to be one day in the office a month (commute is 4 hours for me...) then they said I should be in one day a week after six months in the job
• When I had a episode of life-threatening illness linked to my disability and some time off (a month) I was put under pressure to ignore the GP's advice on my fit note for adjustments on my 1st day back.

I have always done a good job and received praised for my work from most colleagues yet I am treated like this...no wonder I am job-hunting and frankly if I could I would not work at all. This organisation has an abysmal staff turnover so it is not just me who is treated like shit...

Until employers change their mindsets and treat their staff better rather than use them as much as they can, nothing is going to improve.

absolutely
i am very much in favour of part time workers
but am not listened to

our new manager swans in and wants us all back in the office no more wfh

yet they have work life balance on their agenda but do not follow it, it is just there for show

The thing that astonishes me is that so many people I know in interesting, well paid jobs are made miserable by fighting constant battles with entirely unnecessary things.
They get into work with a lot to do and the computers take an hour to update.
The employer moves everyone to hot desking and gives them nowhere to store their files.
There is nowhere quiet to work because they’re moved to an open plan office that mixes people whose work involves phone calls and people whose work requires concentration.
The lights are put onto an energy saving mode where they switch off if you don’t move around every 10 minutes.

I can see that most of these things are about money saving in some way but they affect people who are paid so much that just losing a few percent of their productivity will more than outweigh any savings.

All the obvious knowledge that used to be so taken for granted it probably never even needed stating about how to allow people to concentrate on their work just seems to have been forgotten and jobs have become stressful when the job itself should be fine and there is really no need for it to be anything other than demanding but pleasant.

At the end of the day there's a big difference between the economically inactive older age group who are making a valid choice not to work because they can fund themselves independently, and those who are economically inactive but aren't financially independent.

I may retire early - and if I do it'll be because I've paid tens of thousands into my occupational pension over the years and am fully paid up with NI too. (I'm actually already fully paid up.) I'm undecided at the moment whether to fully retire at 60 or work part time or perhaps volunteer. The key thing is though it's MY choice because I'm not relying on the state to fund my economic inactivity and I doubt I'll be persuaded back into the workplace by any govt strategy.

The other younger age group of economically inactive people are in an entirely different position and reliant either on the state or their parents. A lot of provision needs to be in place to support this age group if there are health or other issues which are barriers. I also wish the NMW was considerably higher and more of an incentive to do the more menial but totally necessary jobs which are hard to recruit for. And as other posters have mentioned, real distinction between those with significant mental health problems and young people who have a degree of anxiety/ low mood. The latter doesn't necessarily mean a person can't work, and in many cases having some form of work and structure can be positive for people with such issues.

I can’t help thinking that so many are economically inactive as working conditions are utterly shite.

Why would anyone work themselves to death for a shit employer? And most of them are.

Why?

I started a new job last year and only lasted a month for some of the reasons you list. I had gone from a small friendly office but turned up at this new role to find I was in a massive open plan office with hot desking, so never sat next to the same person twice, wasn't with the other people in my team so hard to build relationships. I had to complete forms over the phone asking very sensitive questions about health and bodily functions and there were barely any private rooms to use. the noise was unbearable and i couldn't concentrate. IT systems were poor, nothing was properly set up for me yet we were expected to start taking cases from day 1 .When I went for the interview they said two days in the office, by the time I started the role that had gone up to 3. They wanted everyone in one the same days but that meant no car parking spaces unless you got there at 8.15 which became impossible. It was so bad I left after a few weeks and went back to my old job. the hassle just wasn't worth it even for the extra money !

But then a life on benefits isn't going to be much better is it especially for a single person so what choice do people have but to put up with shit employers? Unless they are older, have private pension provision or inheritance most people are not going to opt to live on £370 of Universal credit a month no matter how bad the job is.

But youher ones live with their parents to avoid shit jobs. Older ones leave at 55.

This gives a working window of about 25 years. A full working life used to be 16-60, so 45 years.

Conditions are so shit now that people are choosing to be economically inactive. So maybe people are choosing to work considerably less.

@@ArseInTheCoOpWindow
*

• "So maybe people are choosing to work considerably less."

You've hit the nail on the head. It's a ^^ choice.
Which is valid if someone is financially independent but a massive problem for society if they're not.

Ultimately anyone capable of working should be significantly better off by working. That's the incentive for most of us - being able to afford somewhere nicer to live, more money to spend.

So work needs to be much more attractive and better paid

I think this is because the government have labelled this group in economically inactive.

And they want the work force gap filled. Gap caused by brexit and maybe covid.

And gap also caused by shit wages and conditions.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow it's also a massive problem for the individual in the longer term because while those young people may be able to survive now, either with a pretty bleak existence on benefits, or with a more comfortable existence with mum and dad, they are doing NOTHING to secure their financial future.

I'm in my 50s and eligible for the state pension at 67. No way would I want to exist on that alone - it's a pittance really. It's the fact I've worked and paid into other pensions that will sustain me.... the state pension I'll see as a handy top up!

With auto enrolment for pensions the govt have made it pretty clear that people have to take responsibility for contributing to their future and not just relying on the state pension. It's a massive concern not just in the here and now that so many younger people aren't working, or only work part time. They're also heading for a future with zero or just a part time pension.