[News] Is Britain work shy ?

Han Solo said:

There are very strong links between my attitude and my unemployment. I'm a lost case. I'm not young either.

But its not relevant to the topic or my stance. I have zero self-interest on this topic. The ONLY thing I try to do here right now is to highlight the situation of the depressed and hopeless youth of the world today that gets dismissed as "lazy".

They need help and understanding and they need it now or we're going to have suicide rates that make the rates of the 1920s and 30s depression look like a kids game.

Understand them and help them get good lives or bring out the whip and push them over the edge. Thats the only two options at this point.

Those who have done well and lived well need to pull their head out their arses and try to understand that society has changed in the direction of "easier to live, more difficult to have a life" and that the young ones are depressed about it.

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It's a shame you feel like that mate, it doesn't have to be that way.

You raise a good point further down, and this is kind of what I have been trying to say. I'm not sure 'work shy' is the right phrase. I think the problem is more that social media has raised expectations for young people so highly, that they aren't prepared to start at the bottom and work for years and years to finally get to what is perceived as success- they want it NOW. They see 'Influencers' driving supercars they earned from posting on social media and think that is what they should be aspiring to. It isn't.

When I was a 'young person' I didn't know anybody that drove a supercar or spent their lives in 7 star hotels in Dubai, or even had a six pack. My expectations were fairly low really. Nowadays kids have all this stuff shoved in their face so they end up thinking it is the norm, or is what 'success' looks like. I genuinely think that is a large part of the problem, that when you see all that stuff as the life you feel that you deserve, the road to get there looks virtually impossible, and any rung you can feasibly get on that ladder is so far away from the top that it feels pointless bothering to get on it.

dsr-burnley said:

Could you clarify what that quote means please?

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Yes.

Once we introduce our children to the big world at the age of 3 (which is often when they start using tablets and similar), the big world will feed them information about how to behave, what is successfull, what is undesired and so forth. They are going to consume an average of 8-12 hours of behavioural schooling and conditioning every day.

Children quickly learn that everyone is always beautiful, everyone is living in a fancy house, everyone is having lots of friends, everyone is having lots of sex, everyone is having exciting jobs.

In other words, they are subjected to californication from the age of 3 and this is what they expect from society, and more importantly this is what people believe society require from them in order to be "normal".

Then they face the real world and the GIGANTIC difference between what they "need to do to be normal" and what is actually possible leaves a sense of fatigue and hopelessnes.

It is more comfortable to be alive today. We have central heating, indoor toilets, endless entertainment/conditioning. Cool medicines and fancy tech to buy things easily and so forth. Older people may ask "why are you not happy about it when we had it so rough". Well for similar reasons the people born in 1950 didn't get some sort of euphoric reactions to landlines or pavements... its hard to appreciate what you take for granted.

So when someone says "all I had was a mattress and a table", people think of a heroine addict rather than some sacrifice, because the standards have changed, the expectations have changed.

Through telling our 3-year-olds - or 10-year-olds or even 15-year-olds - "take this screen and swallow californication for 12 hours a day and you'll be great", we have sent them to a life in misery and hopelessness where you can take all the long shots you want, its still too far away.

The mix of increasing socialisation in the direction of californication along with omniworld fears and technological unemployment... its never been more difficult to reach the expectations raised by yourself and others. My gut hurts just thinking about what goes on in the mind of the average 18-year-old now.

Why is @Han Solo polluting yet another thread? I thought his reinstatement was on the condition he only stuck to football topics?

thedonkeycentrehalf said:

Why is @Han Solo polluting yet another thread? I thought his reinstatement was on the condition he only stuck to football topics?

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I stick my head into some non-footy-threads that I see as fairly harmless and not massively upsetting anyone. I'm avoiding everything that seem, sensitive like wars and your domestic political battles and whatnot, and have been assuming this would make people happy enough. But if you find it very upsetting that I'm discussing this subject I will of course stay out of it and leave room for your views and perspectives. It is not my intention to polluting anything, merely to discuss.

thedonkeycentrehalf said:

Why is @Han Solo polluting yet another thread? I thought his reinstatement was on the condition he only stuck to football topics?

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Don’t see what he’s doing wrong here. I’m finding his contribution to this one interesting.

thedonkeycentrehalf said:

Why is @Han Solo polluting yet another thread? I thought his reinstatement was on the condition he only stuck to football topics?

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If everybody stuck to football topics, many of us wouldn't bother visiting here very often. Leave the guy alone, he's playing nice

The Clamp said:

There is a remarkable amount of help out there for under 25’s and Indeed is chock full of jobs both qualified and menial.

The Jobcentre will pay for a CSCS course or an SIA license.

If one is able bodied and willing to work, there’s plenty out there. And if the motivation isn’t there, it’s not hard for the government to provide reasons to work.

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All I would say, having had a period of unemployment a few years ago, is that yes, Indeed is full of jobs, but if you’re unsuccessful most do not even bother to contact you. You simply see the job re-advertised a few weeks later.

I was fortunate enough to find work eventually, but it’s heartbreaking to feel completely invisible, applying for 10-20 jobs a week, tailoring your applications, sending your application off into a void, and receiving nothing in return. I would argue that this lack of responsiveness on the part of employers can have a huge impact in turning short-term unemployed people into long-term unemployed people. People give up.

It should be a legal requirement for employers to:

a) send an acknowledgment that they’ve received your application from the job site (incidentally applications starting on one jobsite frequently lead you on to another jobsite, requiring you to register all your personal details again before you can even start the application itself)

b) a brief note to confirm you’ve been unsuccessful when you’ve been unsuccessful. Even if they say they won’t enter into correspondence on their decision, it’s still better to know that your application was looked at.

There is nothing that destroys self-esteem and confidence faster than feeling like you don’t exist, firing off application after application into a void with no responses.

I’d also point out that lots of jobs that have historically been considered menial are now closed to certain groups of people, because (e.g.) they need to be able to read to pass COSHH mandatory training, even if they don’t need to read to be a cleaner.

Regulation that’s there for good reason has nevertheless closed off entire categories of previously manual work from people. See also computerisation, the people who simply can’t grasp it still exist, they’re just largely hidden from view. They’re not all old codgers either. There are still kids coming through who don’t and won’t touch computers/phones/tablets (often a significant overlap with those with reading difficulties)

I agree that if your physical and mental health is robust, there’s work out there, however I do feel that part of the answer to the increasing number of people with depression and anxiety is “make the world a bit less hostile and horrible.” Our assumptions about what others can do tend to be based on what we know we can do ourselves. It’s scary out there when you don’t feel your face fits, and you don’t know how things work. People retreat and hide, and close themselves off. Reaching them then becomes a hugely intensive 1 to 1 exercise in lengthy ongoing support. Job centres seem to regrettably provide largely performative support, due to staff caseloads.

Would people accept the amount assigned to the DWP doubling? That’s what it would realistically take to provide the levels of support to bring those who’ve closed their door on the world back into it. And you’d have to commit to the cost long-term too. Not pull the plug halfway through when results were slower than hoped for. That would lose them for good. This is far from a slam dunk for anyone who wants to genuinely make inroads into these figures.

TLDR - it’s complicated, with loads of overlapping factors. It is likely that what would be required in support to reach many individuals would significantly exceed the reduction in benefit payments. Do we want this badly enough to pay for it?

I think that rising wealth inequality and high taxes for the ordinary person we may have passed a tipping point.

More of the pie belongs to the minority. There is not enough wealth tax that encourages redistribution of capital, and when Labour scratch the surface with farmer's IHT the rich and the right wing media come down hard, misrepresenting the tax outcome or the social benefits as "an attack on farmers".

There are sinister forces at work here that are keeping the wealth among the few.

Pavilionaire said:

I think that rising wealth inequality and high taxes for the ordinary person we may have passed a tipping point.

More of the pie belongs to the minority. There is not enough wealth tax that encourages redistribution of capital, and when Labour scratch the surface with farmer's IHT the rich and the right wing media come down hard, misrepresenting the tax outcome or the social benefits as "an attack on farmers".

There are sinister forces at work here that are keeping the wealth among the few.

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how does a wealth tax or redistribution of capital create jobs? or encourage people not working to do so?

PILTDOWN MAN said:

So yes I was one of those that bought my first place aged 18. Worked a bit and then bang all was rosy, f*** you youngsters. Or the truth.....

I had two jobs, working 12 hours shifts as an aircraft engineer followed by 4 hours at a pub. My flat had a mattress, a deck chair and an old TV. After three years my flat was worth £16,000 less than I paid for it, my mortgage was higher than the wage I had as an engineer.

It was f***ing hard work with very little reward. These days the youngsters NEED all their comforts aren't prepared to go without, do what is needed to get ahead. I agree housing costs are an issue but so are expectations.

Far too easy to moan and do f*** all.

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It’s one thing if you’re an aircraft engineer as I imagine that’s a relatively interesting and relatively well paid job with a future. 16 hours a day working in a dead end job for minimum wage is quite different.

Herr Tubthumper said:

It’s one thing if you’re an aircraft engineer as I imagine that’s a relatively interesting and relatively well paid job with a future. 16 hours a day working in a dead end job for minimum wage is quite different.

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1984 I was on £52 per week as an apprentice and £12 per night working behind a bar. My apprentice pay went up £10 per week each year.

Short answer, yes

The question is why?

Maybe things like migrants getting legal aid, doesn't help.

Pavilionaire said:

I think that rising wealth inequality and high taxes for the ordinary person we may have passed a tipping point.

More of the pie belongs to the minority. There is not enough wealth tax that encourages redistribution of capital, and when Labour scratch the surface with farmer's IHT the rich and the right wing media come down hard, misrepresenting the tax outcome or the social benefits as "an attack on farmers".

There are sinister forces at work here that are keeping the wealth among the few.

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I agree to an extent.

But why do young folk also feel disillusioned in places in the UK with dirt cheap property prices, also in Sweden where we’d told there’s no obsession with buying property and it has the famous social security system?

Herr Tubthumper said:

It’s one thing if you’re an aircraft engineer as I imagine that’s a relatively interesting and relatively well paid job with a future. 16 hours a day working in a dead end job for minimum wage is quite different.

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But in the mid 80’s the overwhelming majority of our fellow school leavers went to work variously on the factory floor, in shops, as child minders, on building sites, admin jobs in insurance, banks or HMRC, or down the docks. 5 days a week, there was far lower holiday/bank holiday entitlement at that time …. 20 days instead of 28. As people had done for 200 years.

People just knew they had to do it once they opted out of education. Parents turfed 16 year olds out of bed if they fancied ‘a gap between jobs’ …. I saw this with an older sibling.

Something has changed, especially since the first lockdown. There’ve been excellent pieces about this on the radio. Many young people are saying, fck this, I don’t want to have to do what my Dad and Grandad did, be a slave to a career.

This isn’t a British thing, some French business people have explained this has happened there too. Folk in their 20’s and 30’s have given up being chefs, waiters, in hospitality, because they want a life and to see their family.

I’m not condemning anyone. I find this change interesting.

GB news now and Iain Duncan smith explaining how COVID f##ked our youngster brains over. He is a decent politician.

Weststander said:

I agree to an extent.

But why do young folk also feel disillusioned in places in the UK with dirt cheap property prices, also in Sweden where we’d told there’s no obsession with buying property and it has the famous social security system?

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I watched a program years ago following some youngsters up north (can't remember the city). The ones that put effort in to get jobs were ostracised from their group of friends and some even their families. Being on benefits was seen as the norm. They even called the money from the post office their wages. It has been a disease in society for decades.

Right Brain Ronnie said:

GB news now and Iain Duncan smith explaining how COVID f##ked our youngster brains over. He is a decent politician.

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Caveats: I don’t watch GB News, I can’t stand IDS, and I haven’t heard the thoughts behind his “explanation”.

BUT I think there is something to be said for this.

PILTDOWN MAN said:

I watched a program years ago following some youngsters up north (can't remember the city). The ones that put effort in to get jobs were ostracised from their group of friends and some even their families. Being on benefits was seen as the norm. They even called the money from the post office their wages. It has been a disease in society for decades.

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I think I’ve seen something similar, it would be on particular estates/locales. Peer pressure to get roped into all sorts.