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.

My DH has a decently paid job, sick pay, holiday pay, pension, life insurance, health and dental insurance (because they want him healthy and at work, not sitting around on NHS waiting lists). Also flexible hours and the option to wfh sometimes, and a stipend every year to pay for career development activities and time off work to attend those activities.

My employer, on the other hand, falsely classed me as a self employed contractor so they didn’t have to pay any sick pay or holiday pay or pension contributions. Pure greed and it disadvantaged me enormously! Plus it was totally legal, why isn’t the government stopping this practice? They would ask me to do extra work unpaid because it needed doing but they couldn’t afford to pay me to do it. They threatened to reconsider my employment if I didn’t do this unpaid overtime. Absolute twats! Then when I quit they couldn’t understand why?

While I don't have much sympathy for shitty employers, I also don't see any reason I or anyone else should be paying taxes to support young people who think they deserve better because they have a university degree.

It’s human nature. Tell people they’ll get a better job if they invest 3 years and spend 50k, and they will expect that job. Humans have a strong sense of fairness, they’d rather not work at all than accept an unfair deal. This was always going to happen when they pushed more people to go to uni without ensuring there were graduate jobs for them afterwards.

You said you ran a Library? who would want to learn to be a Librarian when all we hear is that they are closing down and are defo not the future?

Young people not in work will get about £80 per week, they will have to attend weekly/fortnightly job centre interviews, they will have to attend SeeTec Plus meetings, show they have applied for jobs, longer term, will be forced to take any employment.

If you live in rented accomodation, you'll get approx £300 a month, about 50% of your actual rent costs.

Not working is no Life of Riley, people on these sorts of benefit (long term) are probably unemployable, they have no work ethic, transferable skills etc.

Why would any employer take them on?

(all of the above amounts apply equally to older people who are not in work, anyone with savings or claiming a pension will either get nothing or a taper amount)

The answer is that the government is either going to have to pay employers to take them on and/or create jobs for them.

Meanwhile of course, the Government wasted almost £30 billion on a railway they then cancelled.......but there is no money :(

@Lumiodes The vast majority who attend Uni and finish their course, get work, they don't chose to live on £80 per week.

I am not sure it is the young people with degrees who are not in work. The articles i have read said things like the under 25s were the most likely to lose their jobs during the pandemic so perhaps they have struggled to get back on track. i have also seen stats saying that issues with mental health are much higher in people who only had gcse level education.

Academic libraries are still going.
Also any work experience in a library would offer transferable skills.

It's a shame that the government dragged out lockdowns for so long, destroying the work ethic and mental health of many people, and many of the businesses which employed them. It was OBVIOUS that this would happen, and that it would become worse and worse the longer lockdowns went on. Do they think we've forgotten this? They're keeping very quiet about it.

Young people paid 10s of thousands to complete a degree and so expect a high paying job to compensate them.

No, sorry that arguments doesn't really add up. The majority of graduates never pay back that loan on full, so in effect in costs them no where near that. Very few new graduates will be earning enough to even start paying back the loan in the first few years of employment.

I do have a huge amount of sympathy with the younger generation though. Rents are sky high, and even finding somewhere to rent in the first place if a challenge, House prices have pushed many out of the buyers market. If they are single it is even harder to find somewhere to live - I know so many people in the 20s and 30s living at home with their parents - trapped by poor wages, no existent pay rises and high house prices.

I think many young people have a different mindset from my generation. They don't tug their forelock, they don't see working in one company as a plan for life. Many got used to working from home during covid - and they resent being made to return to the office now. I am with them. I don't understand the push to get everyone in an office when they can work just as well from home.

My new job has flexi time! What a revelation that was to me, having worked 30 years in a job with no way of taking time during the working day for appointments or just because the weather is lovely and I can finish early. I can also wfh 20% of the time. Amazing!! Times have changed. If employers want to attract and keep their staff then treat them with dignity, respect and kindness.

When i left school, there was hope, i could see a way to by a home, a car, go on holiday.

Now for many people, thats gone, i know people who earn 30 to 35k, work bloody hard, they pay 900 to 1200 in rent per month, thats half their fucking earnings! they have no live in partner and have children still at home, who equally earn SFA.
They need a car to get to work but garage bills have sky rocketted.

A room in an HMO is 500 to 600 per month (all inclusive)

Few can afford to save for a mortgage anymore unless they have parental help or have an inheritance.

The UK suffers from a lack of hope & tbh Labour aren't offering much change either.

That was happening years ago, although the level of debt was less. My son couldn’t get a ‘graduate’ job, but he obviously inherited our work ethic. He took a very basic job, because he understood that as a healthy adult he had a responsibility to earn a living. Eventually he got into the career he’s had for over 20 years.

My oldest grandchild seems to have the same mindset, she’s heading for uni next year, and working part time, even though she doesn’t ‘need’ the money. I support those who can’t work due to illness or disability, and have no problem with those who can fund themselves through early retirement, or reduced hours. However I don’t think we should support anyone indefinitely who simply chooses not to work.

@calimali - the new student loan repayments start at 25k. FT minimum wage is about 22k from April so i think a lot will start paying back earlier but I agree that the payments are low early on and that most loans dont get paid off.

lizzowhiz, the mental health problems of the young people might disappear if they actually got a job and earned some money and self respect instead of living in virtual worlds or expecting fame and fortune to fall easily into their lap like the "reality stars". You have to put the effort in I'm afraid or nothing will change.

A life for someone unemployed and on benefits may be a pretty meagre existence but the real nub of the issue is that for people in low paid menial jobs, they too are getting the meagre existence - but without the advantage of choosing how they spend their time 24/7.

There should never be a choice to not work funded by public money. That's basic logic. But there needs to be effective initiatives to support people into work - particularly that younger age group who may have anxiety or low mood but which doesn't prevent them from working. This isn't a binary situation where anyone with some level of stress or anxiety can't work while people who do work are always 100% fine and never feel anxious or stressed!

Housing in the U.K. needs a radical overhaul: build more housing, introduce more housing association schemes to get people on the ladder. Double or treble the council tax on second homes.

Raise the NMW. Cutting benefits is a non starter; there'd be uproar understandably, BUT there needs to be a far greater differential between NMW and benefits. Someone working in the lowest paid, most menial job needs to be significantly, tangibly, better off than someone not working. At the moment with all the fringe benefits too like free prescriptions, there are too many situations where there just isn't a big enough differential to incentivise people to work. People in low paid jobs who have to pay their own rent, council tax, etc etc are being screwed .... they often really aren't much better off than not working.

And finally it's absolutely bloody ridiculous that 50% of people are now encouraged to go to uni. Degrees have been massively devalued and they aren't needed for absolutely tons of jobs. Total u turn is needed, it's a scandal that young people rack up tens of thousands of debt on something which is unnecessary.

This, 💯

I work with 18-24 year old NEETs and compared the pre-pandemic the level of need is just off the charts - it's not just a case of shoving them into work!

Of course it's not a case of shoving them into work; it's about providing support and not accepting the status quo. What kind of existence is it for someone to spend their entire adult life huddled in a bedroom afraid to even answer the door? There needs to be a complete overhaul of support services.

And it's not a contradiction to state that alongside that, there needs to be a differentiation with those who may have some level of stress/ anxiety but who are capable of working. I work with young people too and alongside the extreme cases which @LakieLady refers to, I know young people who have social anxiety/ other mental health issues who do go out, travel, spend time with friends, even go on holiday, yet claim they can't work.

The greater recognition nowadays of mental health issues is good. The shift towards self diagnosis and those awful online 'screener' tests which tell young people they're at risk of ADHD/ ASD/ whatever are terrible. They can often start a young, impressionable person off on a path of either believing they have some medical diagnosis or at the very least exaggerating some aspect of their mental health in a way which really isn't helpful.

My dh works in a warehouse, most of the long term staff are older, over 50s. They really struggle to get reliable staff, a lot of the ones that come think it’s ok just to not turn up some days

@lizzowhiz Rising the NMW, just removes differentials, atm we are heading for huge numbers of people on the Living Wage, at my local FE college, lower bands have gone, 1, 2 or 3 wage bands are below the NMW, you now have people who used to earn considerably more than a cleaner, now on a similar wage.
Not all all organisations can afford to rise wages for all employees.

The difference between living on UC and working in a NMW job is about 5 x higher, how much more should it be to encourage work?

Just 37% go to Uni and as low skilled, so called menial jobs diminish, people will need to have far higher levels of education.

The % of young people going to Uni is on par with most EU countries and far lower than many international countries.

My child is autistic and I can’t see him ever being able to work. Currently I work full time as he’s at school but I can foresee that when he’s finishes school I’m prob going to have to give up work to.

The difference between living on UC and working in a NMW job is about 5 x higher, how much more should it be to encourage work?

Can you share the evidence for that? T

Lots of doctors came out of retirement during the pandemic. People will pitch in and do something they don't necessarily want to when it's important. But this is about plugging the gaps in bad management of the country.

Well, it looks as though Sunak has a plan to slash working age benefits:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rishi-sunak-benefits-national-insurance-b2510044.html

It all boils down to simple numbers, if we have an unsustainable number of people out of work then we can’t afford to pay their benefits 🤷🏼‍♀️

It amazes me that so many posters seem to think this isn’t the case because the economy runs on moral justice and according to public need.

If money was the object, trades present a better option than graduate jobs in terms of salary nowadays. Average graduate salary is £35k and average trade salary is £45k. Obv many are earning much more in both camps.

Its no secret, UC or JSA for a single person is less than £67 per week (u25) or £84 above 25 - NMW is £343 per week take home pay @£10.42 ph (over 21 from April) and 37.5hrs per week.

So 4x for an older worker and 5x for a younger worker.

Age JSA weekly amount
Up to 24 up to £67.20
25 or over up to £84.80 (Gov.uk)

Even if you add in what a single person can get in rent support, living in an HMO, work still pays considerably more.

Now if you add in children and sole tenancy agreements, then yes, the gap is far smaller but we are talking about young people choosing not to work.

Might be worth asking why an apprentice wage is less than £7 ph......

In many cases I’m willing to bet they live at home, are enabled by parents and see the £70 a week as spending money. If you’re sleeping all day and just ordering takeaways then it covers that.