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.

Final salary pensions are one reason why the country is in such a state.

They seemed fine at the time, but it was only when people started to retire that businesses and pension providers realised the HUGE cost of actually paying those pensions out.

ONS figures for 2023 show that most of the 2.7 million "inactive" under-25s were students. The majority of them did not want a job.

Among 25- to 49-year-olds, 1.1 million people did not work because of caring responsibilities, about a million of whom are women.
Nearly one million people in this age group were not working because of illness - more evenly split between men and women.
The main reasons that 3.5 million over-50s were out of the job market were illness and early retirement. Almost nobody who retired early said they wanted to return to work.

Benefits should be a safety net and not the norm. If jobs are available, you take it.

I'm in the East Midlands and you could be describing life here.

The only reason we need more people is to prop up the unsustainable Ponzi scheme that is modern capitalism a bit longer.

@OnlyDespairRemains you May well be right, but what would be a satisfactory alternative?

More's the pity! They're probably looking forward to 3 or 4 years of 'Uni', dossing around, running up massive debts and then blaming everyone else because their Mickey Mouse degree doesn't have the world queuing up to employ them.

At our GP practice, they have a policy of offering over 80’s an in person appointment the same day. The unfortunate working age patients have to wait weeks!

I’m not sure where you’d draw the line on age/treatment but my experience with a very elderly relative, late 90’s was that they were kept going well beyond what was humane and dignified. I think they're scared of being sued if every treatment isnt tried.

The leader of reform caused Brexit and continues with the same damaging stance. Reform UK, formerly the Brexit Party and colloquially known as Reform, is a right-wing populist political party is it not.Reform pretty much only have Brexit ideology and immigration on their agenda- they care little about anything else. They have been and would be disastrous for this country.

My aunt got breast cancer at 73. They disputed treatment due to her age & the fact she had another chronic illness. She & her DH insisted on treatment.She lived a happy life for another 8 years.It was the right decision. Nobody should be denied treatment according to age unless it's absolutely certain they wouldn't benefit from it.

Judging by the damage caused to this country by Brexit, and the damage caused to our public services by the Tories, I’d say that a right-wing government is the last thing we need right now. We need to be looking outwards and making most of new opportunities, not pulling up the drawbridge and regressing back to a mythical golden age.

Sometimes the truth hurts but carry on blaming the DM if it makes you feel 'right-on' and morally superior. Most working people I know of all political persuasions tend to agree, they hate working to support the slobs.

Transition to a non-growth, sustainable economy instead - see Jason Hickel or Kate Raworth's books for example.

Of course the likelihood of that happening is zero, because the people who drive our system are the 0.1% who are doing fantastically well, will survive the coming societal collapse in their New Zealand bunkers and treat it all like a game.

Well, I disagree with your overarching view and without an alternative, I’d like to give Reform a chance, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Like I said, Labour and the Conservatives have been bitterly disappointing and proven none of them are cut out for the job. Not got much to lose.

If people want less immigration, they need to be prepared to pay more tax and make sacrifices. Not just those earning but taxes on properties/land, pensioners paying more tax (currently they are exempt from NI, for example). They also need to be prepared to volunteer to fill in the gaps eg childcare, elderly care.
As I said, you can't just complain about immigrants without thinking about the consequences and coming up with some possible solutions. Sadly, the people complaining loudly in the right wing media do not want to make any sacrifices; they just want to complain, in the main.

This

Sometimes the truth hurts but carry on blaming the DM if it makes you feel 'right-on' and morally superior. Most working people I know of all political persuasions tend to agree, they hate working to support the slobs.

All this proves is you know a lot of idiots, congrats!

Just going out of my house after the Christmas break highlighted this for me. We have problems with fly tipping generally where I live but the post Christmas rubbish dumping almost had me in tears, It looked like a scene from a dystopian movie. Broken crap everywhere, black bags just dumped on the street, bin men won't take them so they will sit there forever and if there is food in them the rats will arrive. People seem to have no care, no respect and to be totally selfish.

@OnlyDespairRemains thank you for answering my question.

But you can never be certain that they wouldn’t benefit from it. Without wanting to be your auntie could’ve recovered fully from breast cancer so walked out of our front door and got hit by a truck.
There’s no guarantees.
Just data and statistics and at some point a line in the sand

Nobody should be denied treatment according to age unless it's absolutely certain they wouldn't benefit from it.

I agree with this on principle but it isn’t sustainable with the changing demographics, I assume the waiting lists will become so long that unless you can pay private you just won’t be able to access the treatment.

So what do you think of the job Labour is doing thus far?

2025 looks to be a bit of a washout doesn’t it. With stealth taxes on working people and job losses from that disastrous NI rise.

Do we hope to see things improve any time soon? To me, and considering their line was ‘going for growth’, it doesn’t look like they know what they’re doing.

@JudgeJ

More's the pity! They're probably looking forward to 3 or 4 years of 'Uni', dossing around, running up massive debts and then blaming everyone else because their Mickey Mouse degree doesn't have the world queuing up to employ them.

This is such a load of simplistic nonsense.

If everyone suddenly rushed to train as a plumber or electrician (which a lot of people seem to be suggesting is the solution to all our problems) there wouldn’t be enough jobs to go around, the wages would tank and there would be widespread unemployment.

I feel like I have said this a dozen times already but not everyone can be a plumber or an electrician.

@MyPithyPoster my son was born with a life limiting disease (Cystic Fibrosis) and it must have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds a year for all the medication and shit he was on but luckily he died in an accident aged 22 so that has saved a bit of money hasn't it phew

I know I'm being a bitch but fucking hell lol have you heard yourself

Yep, I think people need to encourage their children into careers where humans cannot easily be replaced by AI.

What are the 'old ways' though? Agriculture? Construction? Information technology? Learning a skilled trade such as thatching, boatbuilding or going to university to obtain a degree? Your post is too indeterminate for me to know what you mean.

I’m so sorry. That is heartbreaking.