This country as gone into terminal decline

[Carmes]

I have 2 young children in school.

I am becoming more and more anxious about what sort of jobs / careers they will have open to them.

I work for very large company with 10,000s of employees.

20 years ago whe I started work here there would be 100s of entry level jobs at any given time. These are jobs that don't require experience or a degree, ideal for a school leaver, and I know dozens of people who started their career this way.

Now there are maybe 10 jobs that would fit the same criteria.so. All the jobs have been offshored.
Now are the vacancies are for very specific technical skill set or experience.

This doesn't bode well for someone who has left school at 18'or even university.

They are not responsible for the demise of the UK. However, they are not helping either. They are coming to the UK at further cost to us, a cost which is ongoing and going up and up and up with every boat.

If something isn’t helpful, then it’s part of the problem.

We all need to pay more or accept that the state will provide much much less. There is no reason for the state to provide free bus passes/ elder care/ health care/ dentistry/ out of work benefits.

look at the outcry over means testing winter fuel though

We need to pay more. All of us. Not just the wealthy. this is the bit everyone has a problem with.

There are business owner pensioners who work well into their 70s because it keeps them busy & they enjoy what they do. They pay corporation tax,employ others & take holidays as & when they wish. The point is many pensioners still play a vital role in society. They don't all sit around with their feet up.

I remember my mother telling me that she felt no guilt whatsoever about claiming benefits because her parents died young and they didn’t get their pension 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

i believe the main reason labour has legalised euthanasia is to save the NHS a lot of money, keeping alive all those folk was not sustainable, harsh but true.

Poster don't half talk some drivel on this forum.

And isn’t this supposed to be one of the more educated ones? No wonder we are up the swanny!

i believe the main reason labour has legalised euthanasia is to save the NHS a lot of money, keeping alive all those folk was not sustainable, harsh but true.

100%

Over 50% of young people don't go to university. It's not an either/or. We need to invest in further education and vocational training for those children instead of banging on about ' mickey mouse degrees' all the time. If you are capable of doing A Levels or equivalent, you will be more likely to have a better outcome. You are likely to have the requisite gcses. People who are thrown on the scrapheap because of our obsession with exams and are failed by an onerous, restrictive, uninspiring and overstuffed GCSE system who need to have somewhere to go, and the hope of a well paid and fulfilling career. Telling kids who want to do arts degrees at University that they should become plumbers instead completely ignores the needs of children who are bright, hardworking and capable but simply don't fit into the current education system.

'They don't all sit around with their feet up.'
As I said, some do, some don't.

The point of my post was to counter the narrative that all pensioners worked extremely hard and therefore fully deserve their pension. That narrative is nonsense on several levels.

I've taken on a lot of graduates in the past 5 years

Less than 2% cut it. The rest are the least competent but most entitled crew I've seen.

For context im a millennial

Our education system spoon feeds kids that much that when they get into the world of work now they're incredibly shocked that the world isn't geared towards pushing them uphill, that people have better things to do than hold their hand, abd that they're not actually special, but one of a million cogs.

We need to start here. Our system from reception to uni is on its bum and we're failing them

What happens is that politicians just re-define who is wealthy. It is alteady happening ie on MN people on 60k being told they are wealthy. Then it becomes everyone who isn't on UC is wealthy etc.
That's how you create an environment of taxing everyone a really high %, look closely at the language governments use.

There is this wild statement always made on places like MN "Young people should do a degree apprenticeship! My DD/DS did one with Ernst and Young (or similar) and now earns a fortune!"

In reality decent degree apprenticeships have huge competition (way more competitive than getting into even the top universities) and unless you happen to live in the area of a decent company that offers them, then the pay is often not enough for the young person to rent somewhere.

I also laugh at the people who drone on here about young people "should get a room" - said by people who last rented a room in the 80s or early 90s and have no idea of the cost of even this sort of accommodation these days.

I too think everything is going to the dogs. Sadly I agree with op.

The nhs has recently failed Dh, me and my mum. Everyone blames it on the nhs as if it's some grey enigma, but mostly it's nhs staff just not doing their jobs properly.

We need to pay more. All of us. Not just the wealthy. this is the bit everyone has a problem with.
Agree. But for this to happen, work needs to pay. Large corporations need to pay their fair shareof tax too. Workers need to be paid enough so that they can start paying taxes. For too long businesses have relied on their poor pay being topped up with tax credits, as well as employing people from overseas instead of investing in training and development of staff just so they can pay automatic bonuses and shareholder dividends. They are just as wedded to welfare as anyone else. They want other people to pay for the roads their delivery trucks use.

So who is willing to pay more into the system? Who is willing to work or work more hours? Who is willing to do tough, poorly paid jobs such are care work?

There was a massive outcry even over WFA being withdrawn. It carried on in the right wing press for a couple of weeks! Do you think the outraged are willing to pay more tax so that we cut immigration? That's unlikely.

You think the people complaining loudly about immigrants will be willing to return to work or volunteer in nurseries or care facilities to reduce the need for immigrants? That's also unlikely!

As a teacher, I wholeheartedly agree with this. The ‘differentiation’ we are expected to do for children these days is incredible. My work load is ginormous, meanwhile I have to plan to challenge learners, but only at their individual levels. Support them to meet their full potential, whilst also meeting the schools target pass rate. I wonder sometimes whether it would be easier to have a bank of ready done work and just hand it to kids as they come in. Maybe it’s just my school, but I feel like I’m doing waaaay too much for these pupils and the expectations on them are nowhere near appropriate or the same as those on me to get said pupil a particular grade (although we say everything is fair and challenging and look in shock horror if you suggest otherwise). Your anecdote is evidence that we are going pupils no favours.

I do agree with you the NHS is also frightening right now, understaffed, stressed out nurses. No continuity of care. I had an awful experience in hospital recently and I'm a relatively young non vulnerable person.

Saying that my dd is 24 she got a degree but couldn't get a job in her chosen field. She now works in a different field. Her and her bf work full time earn 50 k between them , she has ability to earn upto 15k more with experience , they were able to save in two years for a house deposit (15k) and have just bought their first house.

I’m sorry, but the people on boats aren’t coming to do that! 😂 and frankly, I wouldn’t want unvetted visitors working in care homes or nurseries anyway.

I agree - we need more people learning a trade. Everyone complains how difficult it is to get a good plumber or electrician and with plans to increase house building the full range of skills will be needed.
Apprenticeships are the way forward.

True. Corporate socialism.

@taxguru

Today's children need to learn a trade. For decades, "hands on" jobs have been frowned upon by parents who want their little darlings to go to Uni and become IT consultants, whether they were capable or not. Hence so many graduates in irrelevant subjects doing minimum wage work.

Becoming a motor mechanic, electrician, plumber, joiner, plasterer, etc and you're set for life. You can either work for someone or it's easy to set up your own self employment, maybe even grow it and start employing others. There is already a massive shortage of workers in these trades which will only get worse as the older ones retire.

This is really simplistic though. These are great trades and good careers and you're right that people who have the aptitude should be encouraged to do them and the stigma should be removed.

But they will never suit everyone and it's never going to be a good idea to funnel everyone into trades. There will always be people whose natural aptitude is more in what used to be called "knowledge economy" jobs. Not only will these people not all be suited to becoming plumbers or electricians (or want to do these jobs) but the economy simply won't support everyone becoming plumbers or electricians.

Also we forget that the "golden goose" of the UK economy for many years has been knowledge economy and financial services jobs. You can say what you like about the City and its in a difficult place at the moment but we don't want to completely de-skill people who want to work in finance/law/economics/journalism/publishing/the arts to the extent that we stifle these economies. The reality is that a lot of wealth creation can and still happen in these industries and disincentivising people from wanting to go into them will just create an overseas brain drain.

There's a silly trope which is fashionable at the moment that says everyone who comes out of university other than those people with medicine or engineering degrees is unqualified for anything except benefits. If you take that attitude no one would ever go into biotechnology or environmental engineering, Or indeed these creative industries which we are quick to scorn as "mickey mouse" but which used to and still do provide a lot of jobs, not to mention a heck of a lot of cultural capital. Some of the UK's greatest exports over the past 50 years have been arts or music. Of course not everyone can do it but we shouldn't make it so impossible for people to achieve this that it becomes the preserve of rich dilettantes whose parents can afford to support them indefinitely.

By all means make skilled trades attractive and remunerative, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater and tell an entire generation that unless they are a plumber, an electrician or a doctor they are useless to society. It won't end well.

Why are you obsessed with the people coming on boats? The right wing press has clearly done a great job on you! The majority of immigrants come here legally to work. Many of them work in the NHS and in care homes.
Who said anything about unvetted visitors? I said volunteers.
You just seem to want to complain instead of looking at the overall picture and trying to find solutions.

Menaingless to compare with “the world”. The UK’s top tax rate is the same as France and Germany, and lower than much of the rest of Western Europe.

I agree with @Tricho, a number of my friends say young people in their depts are just so entitled, been spoon fed. My friend a solicitor - Head of Firm, has had graduates for 20 years, she says they are getting worse.

millennialinterview

Yes agree. Growing up in my town there were many massive employers including our towns hospital which has an A&E. By mid 2000s all factories started to close and ship abroad to Eastern Europe or India..the hospital got smaller and removed A&E and eventually no minors. They want to create metropolises massive super hoapitals fewer employees.
My parents were able to afford a semi detached house on minimum wage (factory work) after saving for 8 years! While renting with no Mortgage. .that is impossible now.
Even those I know with higher wages can not afford it as renting and bills takes all there wages. They can't save enough to be mortgage free.