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.

I don't think it is terminal decline, more a reset. The world has changed dramatically in my lifetime, let alone the previous generations. You mention your parents, what country did they emigrate from, and what's it like now?? Would they have had the same opportunities if they had stayed??

World order is changing, wealth and opportunity is moving, climate, technology, demographics, all changing. We are in a unique situation in historical terms .... Or are we?? Everything is cyclical, change is the only constant.

What is worse is that after Brexit the young people in the UK don’t have the right to even go and work in the countries where things have been nearshored.
It has taken away so many opportunities for young people in the UK. I took advantage of it 30 years ago and haven’t looked back. Earning more than I could have dreamed of in the UK, own my house, I am now trilingual.
I‘m waiting for my citizenship for the country I live in so I can travel around Europe when I retire - luckily at the moment we still have a final salary pension.

The UK is certainly in steep decline. I would hesitate to say terminal because you never know. But most of us have not really yet come to terms with how poor and economically insignificant it is.

In terms of what it means for the next generation: certainly people in skilled trades such as plumbers and electricians will be fine but not everyone can become a plumber or an electrician. A certain group of people will obviously also go into medicine but that’s also not for everyone.

The group I worry most about is kids trained for white collar work which basically won’t exist or won’t be paid by the time they qualify.

Law (private sector still well paid but extremely elitist and being offshored, public sector on its knees)
Journalism (basically moving towards unpaid only)
Banking: the City is in terminal decline due to a toxic combination of pension mismanagement plus Brexit
Tech start ups: increasingly moving to the US
Consultancy: being affected by the crisis in the City

Most of these jobs won’t exist in Britain in 15-20 years.

I know a lot of people will say their hearts bleed etc but white collar industries have supported this country’s economy for the past three decades and most of that is moving offshore.

There is also obviously public sector work too but the economy’s over dependence on this is in part what’s pushing us into this current crisis.

I will be advising my DD to seek work on a different continent. Probably the US or Asia. It pains me to say it but Europe is on a fast track to becoming the poorest continent in the world. There’s no short term recovery here.

And Brexit impacted financial services massively with the investment banks moving thousands of jobs out of the UK.

Secretarial work used to be everywhere, where has that gone?

I think it's coming back. My employer reduced admin roles a few years ago as they were considered "non-productive" and decided the engineers could write their own reports, book their own transport etc. They've now realised that the engineers are spending a large proportion of their time doing admin rather than what they're experts in, so it's a false economy.

We've got a very strong early careers team and they do a fantastic job in finding, coaching and developing young people in apprenticeships and traineeship. There is a big gap at the next level and our company, along with a lot of others, are now paying the price of not taking on trainees in the wake of 2008.

I know a lot of my children's friends have decided against university (my own included). My concern with degree apprenticeships is there's no room for fun. Going away to university is an opportunity to try adulthood (living away, budgeting, alcohol tolerance!) with a huge safety net. The apprenticeship route throws you straight into full time employment.

But nonetheless they are trades where skills are needed and pay well once you have gained the qualifications. Most jobs have some disadvantages with either physical problems or mentally overloaded ones. It’s just a case of looking after your health generally, and using the tools there are to make the job less demanding on you. I do a desk job. Have done for years. Aching back and bad eyes due to persistent sitting and use of computers.

My mum trained as a secretary in the 1960s.

She learned shorthand and typing.

Now everyone does their own typing. Emails have mostly replaced letters. Then no manager would type anything - a letter would be dictated then checked then sent.

Shorthand is a dying skill. Few journalists learn it anymore and that's the only profession it's useful in. Court secretaries use a specialised version.

Secretaries have turned into personal assistants and office administrators.

They do but they have always had these.
I am talking about 100s of roles that a school leaver could have a chance of getting. Those roles don't exist.

That comment about the US - growth for who? There seems to be a huge poverty gap in the US, growing wealth inequality and plenty of people struggling there too so who is the growth benefitting? Just saying.

Things always change and change is unknown.
I grew up with mass unemployment. That was followed by the tech revolution which did away with vast numbers of jobs previously done by semi skilled workers.
The job I did for 30 years is degree entry now, when me and my colleagues did it we all left school with just O levels. My children in their 20s with degrees have far, far better career prospects than I ever did and as they don't live in London they already own their own homes.
New careers and skills move in to take their place. And we will always need hairdressers, electricians, builders, none of which need a degree and none of those trades are ever without work.

When I travel in Europe I see a lot of graffiti. It's not just in the UK.

You didnt need a degree, a degree has become an arbitrary requirement, without any thought of whether its required or not.

Its a waste of time and money for lots of people and lots of employers are blinded by this apparent requirement instead of focusing on whether someone has the personal skills needed.

Lots of young people come out of university now with degree, still cant spell that well, have no life or work experience at all, we have infantilised a whole generation and its bad for them and bad for society.

So many recent graduates are unstoppable get a job. Hundreds applying for the small number of grad schemes and those that don't get one having to do traditionally non grad jobs eg call centers. Yet still having to pay back all that debt. It's barely worth getting a degree anymore

I think people are pretty poorly informed about how London and the city essentially has supported the rest of the country. If that falls we have no way of sustaining ourselves.

We're already not food secure.

@soupfiend I never said I needed one for the actual job just that it became a requirement for it.

I am in London and as pp said, have both my adult DC are living with me and am resigned to them doing so for a while longer ( one still in education). Though both are happy to house share in the near future.

I don't charge rent. I did not predict the level of financial support they would need tbh, but I can stretch to it. I think we all need to prepare for adult DC being at home for longer.

Advised both to move towards high earning professions if they want to stay in London, and one took my advice. The other didn't, is regretting it and may retrain.

Even those with medical insurance can end up going bankrupt.

The benefits bill for the UK is staggering. It seems almost everyone claims benefits even those in full time work. It's unsustainable. When my DC were tiny you worked or you went without and certainly no top ups now everyone seems topped up by UC.

Too many non working people being propped up by a shrinking workforce that’s taxed to an inch of its life.
There was a thread on here recently about someone receiving £4.5k a month without having a job, equivalent to a job earning £80k gross. Whats the point of working anymore? That’s why we have no growth.

Every government department is a “computer says no”. We have a water regulator and still Thames Water is going bust and sewage is pumped into rivers. FCA has overseen the massive decline of London as a financial centre. Green legislation that makes our electricity the most expensive in Europe. Taxpayer funded jobs for lazy bureaucrats. But if you point any of this out you are an evil capitalist.

Want jobs, prosperity, growth and houses? You want less government.

@soupfiend

I think people are pretty poorly informed about how London and the city essentially has supported the rest of the country. If that falls we have no way of sustaining ourselves.

Indeed. And while everyone likes to sneer at bankers and other members of the metropolitan elite the reality is that the money those people generate has basically sustained this country since the collapse of heavy industry.

And if these industries are driven offshore or into the ground there is literally nothing to replace them.

This poor planet is supporting 8 billion people. All competing for food, shelter, fuel, potable water, breathable air and a means to earn a living. Not to mention their consumption of technology and plastics.

The planet hasn't increased in size but human population has tripled in my lifetime, even as natural resources dwindle, climate change affects housing & food supply, technology/AI render human labour unnecessary, and economies have become global instead of local.

We have bred ourselves into a cheap, easily replaced commodity. It's too bad people in the 70s sneered and scoffed at the zero population growth movement.

Now we are paying the price. It's not going to improve. Today's offspring are going to have a very tough life.

I know someone with a history degree. She couldn't get a job with it so she now works in a clothing store. My friend has a psychologist degree and she works in HR because they wanted 2 years experience for most jobs. Sometimes a degree is pointless.

Need more HONEST, QUALIFIED and ACCOUNTABLE for their work plumbers, electricians, builders etc - so many cowboys in those fields.

I don't think it is terminal or beyond redemption. I do agree with you about the lack of careers that can start at 16 or 18 though. Part of the issue of later retirement starts from later career starts, and in my opinion, many university degrees are of little value.

Well yes, some degrees are.
Particularly history and English. Which is a pity.