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.

Exactly how I feel after almost 40 years of working, many of those years Nursing with combinations of 6.30 starts, nightshifts, 12 hour days etc and dealing with a lot of horrific stuff. Now I sit in traffic for 40 mins to go four and a half miles, have a massively high workloads dealing with often difficult people all day. I've had enough, exhausted and burnt out. I'm going to retire by 60 if I make it that far.

Agreed it’s the likes of Rishi with his 12 houses and 20% tax that are robbing the rest of us.

It’s a problem, not morally but economically - they’ll still continue to use all the public services but won’t be contributing the level of tax they would be if working.

The younger age group is also apparently more the lower socio economic groups, with fewer qualifications. We have spent so much time obsessed with the 50% of children that go to university ( including slagging them off for doing useless degrees) and no time on the other 50% who could be trained into fulfilling jobs with dignity and prospects instead of slaving away on zero hours contracts or being denied toilet breaks in Amazon warehouses. We don't have a route for vocational education, FE colleges are underfunded and ignored, children are forced to study 8 GCSE subjects full of dull and uninspiring facts when ones that aren't going through the academic route may be able to pass Englush and Maths if they just had to do 5 subjects, or a vocational course.

I work in adult education. It still exists but is hugely underfunded and generally poorly managed. I left teaching to work here. Its like going back in time 20 years in terms of resources. Most things have to self funded unless people are unemployed. The marketing seems to be univesally appalling. There are regional variations and some areas have no AL provision. I'd never go back to secondary school again though.

I think there are so many factors at play here it’s impossible to sum them up in a brief post.

I definitely feel there’s an apathy to life now. Like, what’s the point? People don’t seem to have the same excitement about the future and desire to create a nice life for themselves that they used to. I think it comes from a few places - everything is so expensive so why bother, young people are now massively babied compared to previous years (starting as toddlers and ending with a massively extended youth that sees 40 year olds being called ‘young man/woman’) which means they fail to launch, the emphasis on mental health to the point people dwell on feelings to an unhealthy degree and consider themselves unable to do anything, and a lack of emphasis on paths other than university.

Apologies, I haven’t read the whole thread so I might have missed if this was posted already:
https://ifs.org.uk/publications/number-new-disability-benefit-claimants-has-doubled-year
I remember listening to a piece on the radio that addressed the issue (probably 2 years back). I have no doubt that many of these cases are genuine and these people deserve all the support they can get but one would have be a fool not to acknowledge the incredible increase. Everyone is constantly complaining about services declining, and this is not helped by people abusing the system in such a way.

I know 3 people with it, officially diagnosed. It has been very difficult for them to work anything like full time.

It's hard not to feel we are seeing the Fall of Empire and the inevitable dark ages that follow. All Empires fall (unless anyone is up for a really short debate on any that haven't 😀). Maybe if we'd -paid attention to how the Roman Empire fell, we'd be a bit more prepared.

Nothing in that implies that people are abusing the system.

This is very similar to my experience - I went from doing hectic 8+ hour shifts in a busy McDonald's to barely being able to leave my bed some days. I have terrible chronic pain and physical exertion leaves me feeling like I have the flu. Oh and I spent half my life feeling like I can't breathe properly. It absolutely fucking sucks.

Doubled numbers? Large percentage of people under 25 with mental health and behavioural issues?

You don't think it's possible, or likely, that Covid and the lockdown has negatively effected the physical and mental health of the nation?

Or that the state of the NHS is also having an impact on the physical and mental health of people?

I know quite a few. Five of them now dead from their diseases. Also, manual workers will have higher rates of disease and disability from years of heavy work. Again, I know people in this category. If you are working in hospitality or retail and you need a new hip or knee you aren’t necessarily going to be able to continue to work. I know someone who did removals. He is in his early 60s and his hands are shot and he can’t do the work any longer. Just because you don’t know any doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Global pandemic?

recession upon recession meaning no one has any sense of security or hope for the future?

recession leading to poorer housing, poorer nutrition and therefore worse health outcomes?

14 years of brutal underfunding of public services so education is fucked, early help is fucked, mental health services are fucked, and SEND services are fucked?

The NHS is fucked.

A regressive curriculum which is letting down massive swathes of children and leaving them completely unprepared for being able to earn?

You can’t see why any of these might have led to an increase in anxious, miserable young people?

If you had read the report properly you would also have seen that even after removing COVID related deaths, the number of working age people dying has also increased a noticeable amount- showing that people are actually physically more ill more often.

They are missing the fact that many of these 'lower/middle income earners' had parents who had bought houses in the 60s and 70s and those parents perhaps passed away sometimes in the last 4 or 5 years, and left their nice properties to their aged 50+ offspring

Offspring were used to living on below 25k a year, so with their new inheritance, are happy to have given up work to live off it in the frugal manner to which they are accustomed. I cannot blame them one bit.

I think we are going to see more of the same as the early boomers pass, leaving their wealth to their 50+ year old children.

Where does it say in that piece that people are abusing the system? It is saying there is a rise in health conditions, particularly mental health. Disability benefits are notoriously difficult to be awarded.

I think a big problem is the hollowing out of mid range jobs into the polarisation of highly skilled or lower skilled ones.

I agree with this. I'm currently looking for a mid-level role and finding it impossible to get anything locally. Everything is either entry-level, senior-level, or is mid-level but pays entry-level wages.

If you're gonna pay me only a few pence more per hour than Asda will then I will work at Asda where I don't need to keep expensive technical certifications up to date to progress or keep my career.

The poster is working just part time.

@MsFaversham That’s sad and I don’t doubt or question your experience but there is no reason why it would be inevitable. My cohort of 55 to 70 year olds have lived a full and active life and still work and exercise like they did (in most cases more actively than) in their 20s to 30s and there is no physical reason why this shouldn’t be the case.

I know so many people (in fact the majority of people I know) who are strong, fit and on the ball in their 60s. This is not wishful thinking but based on teaching fitness classes and teaching post graduate courses. There really is no difference in fitness levels or cognitive ability. I am involved in a research project that will be published soon about learning in over 60s. I know it makes may not fit with what you ‘know’ as a ‘fact’ but unless you have dementia it looks like there is no reason at all why you wouldn’t/couldn’t acquire new knowledge and skills over the age of 50. In fact it looks like (look out for the studies) that people in their 50s and 60s are the ideal age to learn new things (and pass them on).

I went through a phase in my early 50s when I felt ‘past it’ and this feeling was certainly enforced by cultural ideas about what women that age are capable of. Looking back I can see I was knackered from years of bringing up children, working in the public sector and dealing with a steady rise in workload without a corresponding rise in paid hours, years of having the mental load and of being the nice lady in the centre of a middle class extended family etc.These were cultural burdens.

There is no physical reason at all why most people in their 50s and 60s cannot work. If the government are really puzzled as to why this age group are economically inactive (code for lazy)) they should consider that there is rarely a physical reason, but:

1. A large proportion of work in the public sector is now impossible to carry out effectively. People under 50 only carry on doing it if they have no choice at all
2. A very large number of people over 50 have children who cannot afford to work when they have children of their own unless their parents look after their grandchildren . this is a huge economic and social change. 25/30 years ago when I had my children it was possible to work and pay for childcare. This is another major factor in over 50s being economically ‘inactive’ they are very busy indeed looking after their grandchildren because their children cannot afford to pay their mortgage and childcare. This was not at all the case when I had my own children

This is true.

I do think alot of mental health issues could be almost fully resolved with a better diet, exercise and more accountability for one’s own well being.

The increase of UPF food is having a huge impact on the health of the younger generation.

Interesting to read comments on mid-level positions
One of my clients - for whom I did work on a permanent basis in the past - is trying to push jobs at me that I feel are far too senior. Never has anything my level.

I'm tempted by the idea of a permanent job again, especially as I hear that performance expectations have lowered. But I wouldn't risk the stress of seniority.

Pp mentioned living frugally. I never got out of that mindset. I find a lot of media about "financial needs in retirement" are putting in really high figures for things I never spent money on in the first place.

I think there would be benefit in the Government putting in place good quality, easy to access, knowledgeable careers advice, and ensuring that children are exposed to a huge variety of career types.

There are so many jobs out there that people don't even know exist, more so I think now with advances in technology and more remote roles so people aren't interacting with or seeing these jobs.

I work in cybersecurity and Governance in a big Global company so I interact with a lot of different roles: call centre, retail/office operations, software development, project management, IT helpdesk, infrastructure engineers, facilities management, procurement, finance, HR, educational psychologists, psychometritions, data scientists, business analysts, sales........Some are office based, some field based, remote, hybrid. Some in the U.K. but employed in a US/ UAE/ EU team and working different timezones.

There are so many options available but if you don't know about them then you don't know what to look for or what you could ask for when negotiating a new position.

If you haven't been exposed to those opportunities and think that just because you have always been a teacher/factory worker/accountant etc then that's all you can be then it's easy to be discouraged if you aren't happy with those jobs or if there aren't many roles.

Surely you could legislate for that?