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.

"unskilled jobs decrease health and well-being due to the nature of them..."

Exactly. The carers, builder and warehouse staff end up knackered from lifting and pushing. Even nurses and teachers seem to take the toll physically, and mentally. Expecting the front line emergency services to work into their late 50's often doesn't end well. Those of us who are lucky enough to work in offices get away very lightly.

I think the government,organisations and businesses have discovered flexibility is a two way street.

Offer young people nothing beyond insecure zero hours work, poor salary,limited training and progression and poor pension - they vote with their feet. A job used to allow you to buy a home and support a family. Both things tie you into work and both seem hopelessly unaffordable. No wonder young people prioritise themselves and what they want to do.

Likewise over ten years of austerity (and % of national debt to GDP still the highest it's ever been) has slung out many committed oldies in the public sector. Why would anyone want to return to a role that is always and continually slagged off, if they can afford not to?

Puck em.

Some of those will have DB final salary schemes.
Personally i feel companies make work often that shouldnt be stressful into a huge stress. Every job ive done has cut staff increased workloads and people especially young ones leave and try to get higher up.
Constant training people but noone knows how to do the job least of all the bosses.
Then theres factors like disincentives (not stupid things like 100k complaining about paying for childcare) but ones like
If you earn over x having to pay towards dc going to uni.
But just a week earlier you earn so little you got CB and UC..

I agree with the first poster there is huge diff in salary in companies from 20k to 1m.
There are likely more 50yo with say 10yo so retiring and travelling etc.

I dont think that many work to 68 or ever have done. Lots have cancer before then. And we can see from KC you wont get many years of work from much older people.

We would be better off saying fewer go to uni at 18 and work and more funded uni places from work.e
And better adult retraining.

This. Left a junior management level (adults) social work job because the stress was making me ill and noone was ever happy with what we did.

Totally agree! Why would we aspire to be like the US with limited benefits and hire and fire at will. There are so many lessons we could learn from the social democratic models or Northern Europe - particularly the idea that the highest and lowest wages of a company are tied together. The sheer fucking greed of those in senior executive positions while their staff are struggling by on NMW makes me rage. Utter arseholes.

Women having children later is also a factor imo for the latter half of the equation.

I'm mid 40s and I don't see me ever having a "proper" job again. I looked into child care before and afterschool but our school doesn't offer wrap around care and there aren't enough childminders to meet demand locally (we live rurally). My youngest child is 5 so it's not going to stop being an issue anytime soon.

I know so many women between 45 and 55 who have had to reduce hours or stop entirely due to a lack of childcare or suitable childcare. That's especially true where sen are involved.

I'm tempted to tell DS5 to train as an electrician.

I think plumbing is more recession-proof. Most electrical work can be put off for a while, but if your only bog is backing up or water is pissing everywhere, you have to get it sorted pdq. And plumbers here are in really short supply. My plumber started his own business when he was in his mid-late 20s. Within 2 years he was so busy, he only does work for existing customers now and won't take on any new ones.

Yes there's a lot of women late fifties/ early sixties giving up usually low paid jobs to look after grand kids and elderly relatives or spouses who are often older than them. In my work I regularly see women early sixties married to much older men ( also often seen in the Asian community). The men become frail and the women have to give up their jobs. Benefits are a lot less when it's a mixed age couple like this as they now have to claim UC rather than pension credits.

My perspective as a forty-something parent and carer with a non-vocational degree is that I ring up the jobcentre, explain my situation and offer the little time I have left for paid work, and I'm met with indifference from jobcentre staff. They don't have any training schemes or programmes to help people like me back into paid work after a long absence (despite the gov.uk website claiming to the contrary). As a result I'm looking to set up my own business, but lack of time and financial resources don't exactly work in my favour.

Electrician work isn't just domestic, I have family who trained as an electrician and he set up on his own. He is early 30s and doesn't touch domestic work. His income is around the top 5%, certainly more than a few doctors and he doesn't have a university debt

Yes, fully agree. Ever since sec mods/grammars were banned (in most areas), we've suffered the "one size fits all" comp system which has always prioritised "academic" teaching which has caused a lot of the behaviour and disruption in our schools today. There needs to be more emphasis on trades and manual skills in schools, from around aged 13/4 as an alternative "path" for the kids who are never going to excel at foreign languages, sciences, Shakespeare, algebra & trigonometry etc. Then that needs to feed into far more options for post 16 via technical colleges etc. Blair's aim for 50% going to University was insane and is a result of the obsession with academic teaching at comps. We need to change the schools and entire education system to give far better options for those who are more suited to a manual/technical/trade working life rather than a "pen to paper" working life.

And pay the taxes for a "good quality" education system ...

Gosh when l started work in the late 70s.. most of my friends went to work in factories.. Warburton bread.. Mr Kipling.. Meat packing warehouses. Mills for clothing.. monotonous work. Heavy and filthy.. tireing.. some boys went down the pit..
Some trained in bricklaying.. building.. plumbing etc.
Some went to college and became hairdressers or Nursey nurses like me.
Some girls went to typing/ shorthand college.
With the Internet everything has changed. I couldn't imagine my Grandkids doing these heavy filthy jobs.
My own kids went to Beauty college and one became a support worker before they had kids.

These are interesting NMW jobs not dead end jobs with a chance of career progression but companies can't get good quality candidates.

They want too much. I've been turned down for these type of jobs because I have no degree (I have an HND), a degree would have been fine in any subject, but my HND was actually relevant to the jobs. Apparently the degree demonstrates your ability to learn 🙄. I've been told I need to sit maths and English exams, because I'm out of date - I have O'Levels in both. I'm self employed now, earning more than NMW and part time hours, so I'm probably part of the problem too!

I'm tempted to tell DS5 to train as an electrician.

Electrician or gas engineer are excellent options, but any trade really these days.

Electricians are in terribly short supply and high demand because of the environment, i.e. they're needed for installing solar panels, heat pumps, electric car charging points, and conversion into led lighting systems, wireless home entertaining/security/control systems, etc. I have a couple of electrician clients and they're booked solid for months ahead, both domestic and commercial work.

Same story with gas engineers, although that may not be too future proof with the move away from gas for boilers etc and onto electric heat source pumps instead.

Car mechanics are also apparently in grave shortages too. I can't book any of my cars into main dealerships for at least 6-8 weeks as they're fully booked "due to staff shortages". Even our two, normally reliable, local "grease monkey" independent garages are struggling and can no longer do breakdowns/recoveries nor "quick/small" jobs due to staff shortages - they now just tell you to go to a particular tyre place or exhaust place rather than doing that kind of thing themselves! Our normal local independent is now literally just himself and his daughter, whereas a few years ago, there were about 8 mechanics of varying skill levels - he says he's been trying to recruit experienced mechanics for a few years but can't, and that he can't get apprentices either because the local college only has around 20 places per year and they're all taken by the main dealerships!!

We need a complete mindset change around the "get your hands dirty" kind of trades. They're now often better paid than "graduate jobs" (jobs that employers want applicants to have degrees even though they're not actually needed), with better career progression and usually better options for self employment and starting their own businesses down the line.

It's also very much linked to the cost of living and availability of housing too I think.
I'm in the North East, and for every job in, say, a supermarket, or a delivery driver vacancy, there might be several hundred applicants. Each one of them could do the job, so it ends up being a family member or friend of someone who already works there that gets it.
Down south, places are crying out for staff in minimum wage jobs, but nobody can afford to live on minimum wage.
This is what fuels the debate about economic migrants - fruit pickers and such. If ten people come just to work a season, and save, they share a house, they have a "man with a van" to get them to work and back, and they basically rough it because it's not forever and they can earn more than in their home country, and save.
People who live there permanently have higher outgoings, or still live with their parents while they study etc, and just don't want or need physical back breaking menial jobs.
Housing and childcare costs are now so high that what would once have been considered a "good job" such as teacher, police officer etc, are now not worth it.
The job vacancies and the unemployed people are at opposite ends of the country.
Even things like the absolutely abysmal public transport outside major cities makes a big impact.
Things like UC states someone should apply for jobs within a 2 hour commute. But that commute costs more than an 8 hour shift at minimum wage pays...
We need "joined up thinking" about the country as a whole.

https://www.financialexpress.com/jobs-career/education-unprecedented-75-surge-in-apprenticeship-opportunities-across-india-highest-growth-in-engineering-industrial-sectors-teamlease-report-3328653/

whilst in India they have been working on apprenticeships.

Car mechanics are also apparently in grave shortages too.

My neighbours DF was a mechanic in the 70s and 80s and he's picked up enough to have happily serviced all his own cars in the 20+ years I've been here. Couldn't get a job at any of the 20 or so garages around here because he's got no certificates. Well, apart from his masters.

The inefficiency of being British is painful sometimes.

@LaughingHistorically you have the O levels but they want you to take exams?!

I don’t know if this ever gets mentioned but another thing is the overuse of tech. Young or old, you hear that doing a bit of extra work for an agency involves downloading yet more bloody software and just think, no.

In some cases, it’s “join the umbrella company to get the pay and then do your own tax”.

I freelance. I find that stuff off putting.

I attended a seminar about getting over 50s back into work. I am 48, single, childfree and will probably do equity release. So retiring at 50 to 55 is my hope.

The seminar was remarkably quiet on key subjects like making a big deal out of small tasks, enforcing certain types of slogan stuff in the workplace etc. basically most attendees said they were happy being left alone to do their job but that often doesn’t happen, and when many cited the above problems, the panel had nothing to say.

I was there because the organiser needed to make up numbers 😂 I left after a very ranty tech expert began shouting about the responsibility of doing paid work and how angry he was that people who could afford to leave were doing so.

These alleged leaders have got to start treating staff well if they want to keep them. With tools like enough staff to share the load - and they might have to sacrifice their bonuses.

I'm sort of in this category.

Left teaching year ago due to burnout and bad working conditions.

I'm 47.

But I use a wheelchair and get fatigued daily so I can't do a full time job. (Teaching was part time).

I have applied for quite a few jobs but as I state upfront I am disabled most don't want to know.

Businesses want cheap able bodied full time workers. They aren't interested in anything else.

It depends what you see as "nothing".

If they manage to shift things for 10 or 20% of people, that will make a big difference.

For the young people,I know MH is real and lots of our young people are suffering after covid, but I'm afraid I don't think allowing them to stay at home indefinitely will be helping them very much.

Not much hope for future generations either , if they are worried about mental health issues in 18-24 year olds now you only have to look at school attendance issues and CAMHS waiting lists to see that younger teens now are going to be experiencing the same if not worse MH problems and if you go further back and read a lot of the threads on here about sub standard nursery care and how the government want to subsidise childcare from 9 mths (which will translate quickly to forcing those on UC to get back to work when their dc are 9mths not 3) you can see that there will be bigger issues in the future with unhappy children who weren’t nurtured at a young age by one primary caregiver and traumatised children in a school system not fit for purpose and unable to access camhs

And of course as other have mentioned- long Covid

I don't know anyone with long covid, the long covid issue I see is people got too used to being paid to sit at home and now don't want to work.

I have CFS and I could maybe manage 12hrs or so a week. I would struggle to do anything too physical and I have no useful qualifications. My options are limited. I could possibly sit at a check out but supermarkets have got rid of most of the manned ones and replaced them with self checkouts.

I get frequent migraines, so I'm completely unreliable as an employee, but I don't meet the criteria for disability benefits either. So many of the jobs that I could have done in the past have been automated.

There is only one person sat behind the counter of my local bank, it's pretty amazing we actually have a local bank as most have been closed, I remember when I was little there were at least five bank tellers. I could work from home but you need qualifications and experience for a lot of those jobs. Some people just aren't academic or physically fit and the jobs that could have been done in the past simply don't exist anymore. As usual the working class are made out to be feckless and lazy.