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.

And, in the 70s, the standard of living was much much lower. Few homes had central heating for example, and there were some very cold winters. Pensioners were properly impoverished on just a state pension of about £6 per week. Let's not sentimentalise it. Life was brutally hard for most.

To be honest, this sounds very harsh, but if the reality is that you haven't saved enough for old age, I think the state should build housing to provide for you to move you out of bigger properties - not pay housing benefit and pension credit etc so you can have the same lifestyle. Forced downsizing, effectively.

The welfare state and the tax system in Britain is creating a lot of disincentives to work. It needs a real look, so that it helps people into work

I remember the early 70s miners' strikes and three-day week very well. Also being bloody cold as our council house, like all of them, had a coal fire and that was it.

Once the old school tie kicked when the coal man, who was at school with my dad, came round with a an extra bag of coal.

I didn't mind the three-day week at all as I was working before going to university so it was just time off for me. What it must have been like for those with responsibilities would have been something else entirely.

Not really - there are tax laws that prohibit people from working wherever they feel like it. Many countries turned a blind eye during the pandemic, but others are being very very clear that, for example, working 2 hrs a day during a family holiday for 2 weeks is a contravention of both your holiday visa and the double taxation treaties that operate globally.

My DH had to forcibly make employees return from their EU holiday homes after lockdown was lifted and even fired a few - they had UK employment contracts and the company was up shit creek without a paddle when people decided they would relocate to Croatia or their InLaw’s pad in Portugal.

Even if you are self employed, you have to pay tax on earnings wherever you generate those earnings.

I also remember the spitefulness of Heath's limiting TV broadcast and pub hours, ostensibly to save electricity but really to try and drive wedge between working class people.

Didn't work.

I think there is a difference between London and other areas. DS1 lives in London and it is truly diverse, he has neighbours of different races, religions and countries of birth.
Outside London, areas are far less diverse as cultures tend to separate themselves

@Papyrophile but life is still brutally hard for lots of people today. Young people living in vans because all the housing in their area is second homes or AirBnBs also don't have central heating. I'm not indulging in whatabouttery, just pointing out that by that metric, things haven't universally improved.

Personally I'd prefer a home with no heating and candlelight to no home at all (and I say that having lived in a rural area with no gas and frequent powercuts)

Cornwall?

@lemonstolemonade to be honest I don't think that's a bad idea except what type of building.
They could build really beautiful elder housing couldn't they around a quad and gardens so it's not like a punishment??

I think there is an inability of those on MN under 50 to accept that the world has been alot worse than it is now.

Yes the 70s was worse. Labour disputes mean the basics weren't happening, if you didn't have a job there were few benefits. Soup kitchens were much more prevalent. If you were lucky enough to have a house, either bought or rented, you likely had little furniture and that would be second hand. TVs, washing machines etc were all rented. (Radio Rentals ads). Schools were full of pregnant teens, and violence and aggression. Knife crime was rife to the extent Glasgow declared a public health crisis. Football casuals, Brixton riots, gang warfare. Murder rates significantly higher than now.

Everything goes in waves. Things will get better but the power base of the world is moving from West to east and we don't know what that will bring but it has swung before and will again.

@Ihopeithinkiknow
I'm so sorry. xxx

Can you imagine people coping with blackouts for hours at a time? Turned off wifi?

Jesus, they'd be going on about their human rights.

@Chewingguminthehair close enough, but I see a pp has said it's the same elsewhere

@helpfulperson unemployment benefits in the UK have actually stayed the same in real terms since the early 1960s, and halved since the 1970s as a proportion of average earnings.

I suppose food banks are the 2024 equivalent of soup kitchens, but probably less useful if you don't have access to anywhere to prepare food.

I agree @Beekeepingmum there are plenty jobs available - people waste time being too picky!

Nothing wrong with wiping arses, sweeping the streets, emptying bins etc. People are far too picky.

@MyPithyPoster So women should do everything for them because that’s the cost of having any children at all?

No wonder this new generation of women aren’t having kids.

There simply are not vacancies everywhere. At least one third of all jobs posted are ghost jobs. Everyone knows this. There's research on this. Google ghost jobs . Tag on something like BBC to get something authoritative.

I don't think half the people posting this sort of stuff here actually have jobs, or have looked for once post-pandemic. Times have seriously changed.

These tons of jobs must be outside of my area, because there aren't too many here. Our local cinema recently advertised 4 jobs. There were dozens of applicants.

Oh and all our cleaners, litter pickers, bin men are white British. British people will do those jobs in locations where the job market is not plentiful enough to attract migrants.

What are you responding to which comment?

There are more job seekers than vacancies.
And that is people on job seeker benefits... not people who are in work and wanting to change, or people not on benefits.
And a lot of the vacancies are a joke and wont take someone off benefits anyway. Zero hour shite... NMW which will get topped up anyway. My relative's cleaning company has a vacancy that will be in those stats... 2 hours once a fortnight, on NMW.

Care jobs should never be for people who are desperate to work. That is hugely unfair on the people needing care.
Pisses me off when care work is promoted as some sort of role any fucker can do. It does a huge disservice to those already working in the sector, and the people they are looking after.

Sorry I did not mean to be so flippant and probably used a bad example of care work. But I just mean there are various vacancies out there if people want to work.

Do you know how much unemployment benefit actually is?
If you think it is as much as you think, then feel free to quit your job and go on it.

I agree. Just because a job is poorly paid and doesn’t require a degree, it does NOT necessarily mean that it’s going to be easy. Care work requires a lot of empathy and patience and tends to be both physically and emotionally draining.

Many people assume that anyone can do manual work, but some of these jobs require better than average dexterity, while others require a high level of fitness and stamina.

Ever seen Undercover Boss, in which CEOs disguise themselves and work in entry-level jobs in their own companies? Most don’t make the grade, most commonly because they can’t work quickly enough!

My sil is a carer so I hear a bit about the hours she works and the T &Cs that regulate her work. I could not cope with her work because I don't have any urge in a caring capacity. I washed DMIL's bum occasionally when the care system failed and I was with her but we lived six hours drive apart so it wasn't a regular thing. I could be a doctor, but not a nurse.