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.

The population of London is close to that of Wales Scotland and Northern Ireland combined.

Or to put it another way, 1 in 7 people live in London.

Or again, London exceeds the size of the next populous 7 cities added together.

I suspect it's unique in the world in that respect. As a capital city with such a proportion of the population.

The reason for that isn't going to go away. No matter how nice the weather in Newcastle.

Why do you believe it would be impossible to fix?

I don't think it would be easy, as in it would be a lengthy process, but it isn't a complex issue. People move to London because that is where the jobs are. If the government incentivised businesses to relocate or set up outside of the SE, it would change over time.

Exactly. Incentives for businesses to locate/relocate in the regions would be a start to help redress the balance and reduce the damage that the centralisation has caused.

Yes, this is true, I live near York so I know the problem there well. Whitby is another one now. Air BNB has a lot to answer for. However it’s not like London in that there are still relatively affordable towns within commuting distance, whereas people living anywhere within an hour of London let alone half an hour are dealing with mad prices.

Yes definitely.
London has drawn people in and gradually expanded for 1000 years, the process isn’t going to be reversed any time soon, but it can be slowed.

Those costs are scary! Is that true for student accommodation too?

Nope, London has the 'City, the culture, the history, just as Paris has or Berlin or New York.

Back when we had a strong manufacturing sector in the Midlands and coal and steel production in the regions, London was still the place to be, just like many other capitals, it has an international aspect.

Its not just the work, its everything else that goes with it.

The so called balance can never be undone, its like saying that given time, a Ford will be as desirable as a Ferrari.

Media City, Salford is a good example of this decentralisation can be successful. It’s a great location now BBC/ITV moved up
there. It has resulted in a lot of high rise apartment living in areas close to it. It’s changed a lot in the last decade or so.

Couldn't let this pass without comment.

If you're ever in a position where you have to curtail every aspect of your life to care for elderly vulnerable relatives I'm not so sure you'll be so grateful for the £60.00 odd quid (last time I got it) for a 24 hour, 7 day a week role fraught with life or death responsibility, emotional distress, dealing with what passes for medical / social care support plus the financial impact.

The fact that dementia and related issues are regarded as social care issues rather than degenerative organic conditions is ridiculous. Care that is available is run for profit, and care workers attend front line are woefully underpaid, never mind family who feel they have no other option.

I'm elbow deep in this for the second time and how I'll be able to work again given that to get carers allowance you have to be caring for at least 35 hours a week and therefore only allowed to earn - I think - 139.00 a week before that generous 60.00 is taken away I really don't know.

And that's just the elderly aspect. People caring for children with disabilities and complex needs are royally stuffed also.

Family carers do save the government a shitload of money, so therefore are contributing.

Some people, usually women, are caring for children and elderly parents too.

I hope you never end up in any if these positions because I can assure you it's brutal in every aspect.

I don’t understand the current job situation at all. DS is 25, graduated in 2021 and just cannot find a job. He is desperate to get just a halfway decent job

He worked for 18 months in an unpaid internship, and also worked for several months in a commission only job.

He has applied for countless jobs and has only had two interviews in all that time - and yes he has had his CV quality checked.

It seems employers only want to employ people on a zero hours contract basis, no paid holidays etc, or they don’t want to pay them anything at all. Most jobs seem to be joyless drudgery, that doesn’t even pay enough to live on.

Largely self-fulfilling - the more we cram everything into London, the worse it gets. There’s plenty of cultural life and a huge amount of potential outside London.

And a Ferrari may be nice to drive but it’s fuck all use for shifting a washing machine.

And this is what makes the Londoncentric obsession in this country so repugnant.

If only other areas had the infrastructure of London. Imagine a network of tubes, trams and trains connecting the north.

We don’t even have trains anymore.

The fact that Birmingham is never going to turn into London is no reason to say ‘ok let’s carry on concentrating absolutely everything into London and making the problem worsen as fast as it can’ when the unprecedented and unparalleled scale of the imbalance is causing harm to everyone, both in the capital and outside.

That sounds tough

What degree did he do?

You don't seem to understand that people's choices aren't always based on the money.

Kids now are growing up to feel deeply disempowered. If you talk to teachers in schools, people working at universities, or taking on young people in employment, they will describe this. A significant number seem to be unable to take any initiative and are scared to step out and take risks.

Most now have never had a job before leaving school. Many have never had large amounts of unstructured time. They haven't been allowed to babysit before 16. They haven't even walked to school much, and often not until they were in their teens if they did. Many have very limited chores or contributions to make to the home.

Kids like this will just stay home, and they are used to having little spending money, and they are also used to feeling like they are non-contributors to the family and society, and that in fact their parents owe them a living until they are ready to be on their own. And - they don't feel ready. They don't realize that most people don't feel ready at the beginning, and some of us even well into middle age.

No one is going to legislate parents not helping their kids, what a silly statement. What is needed is a change in parenting culture that creates kids who can be self-directed and take risks, and where they feel they have something to offer to the family and society, and also a duty to do so.

I found this shocking too after my dd graduated. All
kinds of jobs; Tesco, cleaning, etc.
Would the uni careers help?

I wonder why it hasn't somewhat fixed itself.

I live outside of the UK, but like a lot of places, we have a less extreme version of the London problem - the big city becomes bigger and bigger, all the jobs are there, and it sucks the life out of surrounding areas and towns. Housing prices have been through the roof the last 5 years and there is now a major housing crisis.

I live rurally and work in a small town nearby. It used to be a bustling industrial town, now that is largely gone and it's been in decline for decades. But just over the past year or so, all of a sudden, there is a huge influx of people, many new immigrants in particular. They are looking for cheaper housing, or any housing really.

Many are entrepreneurial and are opening new kinds of businesses. Or they are taking jobs that are less prestigious or well paid. But - they can at least find a home, unlike in the city where it is now impossible. Eventually, I suspect it means some businesses will have to look at located elsewhere too, in order to find workers.

This seems to me like the natural result of unbalanced housing and an unbalanced economy, which should be a kind of corrective. But it doesn't seem to be happening in many instances, London being one example, and I am really curious why that is.

Successive governments have prioritised formal, exam-based education (A levels, degrees) over trades and technical education. This has led us to a situation where many thousands of young people have serious debt and qualifications we don't especially need.

This. You can't get a decent bloody plasterer for love nor money but there are umpteen 22 year olds with degrees from lower tier universities failing to get "graduate" jobs.

Our old babysitter is an example. Mediocre a-levels in subjects better ranked universities don't value, has gone to do a degree in a poorly regarded course, at a third rate institution. Most of her lectures have been online. She's racked up SO much debt it doesn't bear thinking about.

The industries with vacancies?

Supply and demand. Those jobs have crap hours and conditions. They need to pay more to attract staff.

They don't want to so think the answer is for the government to increase labour supply. It won't work as long as there's any better way for people to get money.

Most now have never had a job before leaving school
To be fair, this isn’t the kids’ fault. Legislation has made it too difficult to employ children because of safeguarding. The employer has to apply for a permit to employ the child, has to undertake health and safety assessments, DBS checks have to be done on anyone who might have unsupervised contact with the child, etc. It’s a huge hassle and employers don’t see the point when they could just employ an 18yo instead.

It’s not going to self correct as long as public funding is weighted towards London. The playing field isn’t level.
For example, 2023 transport funding. Transport spending per head
I’m not saying London doesn’t need the money- it’s creaking at the seams. But London gets 3 times as much per head as Yorkshire (and there are lot of heads in London….)

It’s been like this for the past 10-15 years. I dealt with this shit in my twenties and I’m pushing forty now. Most employers don’t give a shit about their employees. The few decent employers get a lot of loyalty and hard work from their staff because they know how rare it is to get a job with proper pay and benefits nowadays.

The housing crisis is in part down to housing being a source of income rather than being treated as a necessity like water or power.
It doesn’t matter how much a landlord charges really. People have to live somewhere.
So renters have to pay exorbitant rents because there is no choice and property to buy then becomes even more desirable and expensive.

Everyone should be allowed to rent out one property at whatever rent they want. More than one and rent is fixed at HA rates ( 80% of market rate and linked to annual inflation. Rents can electively go down as well as up).
More than five properties and you have to take people on the housing register.
This would stop “ portfolios” of houses bought cheap and rented out at insane rates because they can.

People could move flexibly between job locations and as families grow and contract. The only people that can afford to move are those with equity in houses they have bought.

I'm not sure I agree. My mate was a van driver from a rough estate. With bad dyslexia, terrible grades, and a criminal record for selling weed he was probs never going to make it in a corporate job. He got his HGV license on a 'pay in installments' scheme and a year later is making £65k driving fuel tankers. Just one example but if he can do it many others can.

Ummmm you were the one who said we need to drop the link between benefits and wages.... there isn't one - work pays BUT the quality of that work and wages it pays is very poor and exploitative.

So good to see you now acknowledge its not all about money.

"Most have never had a job before leaving school" and? so what? i didn't BUT i had a pathway to getting a car, higher education, a decent wage, employers that would teach me, unions that negotiated on my behalf..

Quite how you intend to change "Parenting Culture" is beyond me, how exactly?

Its our generation that have made the streets unsafe to walk to school, who have embraced the car culture, who have allowed their kids to balloon in size, just look at the hatred our generation has towards anyone who dares to use the roads for anything else but a car journey (usually a 1 mile one)

Your post is all about middle aged people, who have benefited from free this or that, who have great final salary pensions, cheaper housing, regular wage rises etc etc but over successive elections have withdrawn all these things from younger generations, even council housing!!

But then have the nerve to turn around and blame young people.

At least accept some responsibility for the mess this country is in.