I think anyone who signs on should be used by the council and spend every day sweeping up leaves, emptying bins, cleaning graffiti, picking up litter, doing volunteer work at nurseries, schools, hospitals, drop in centres, etc.
Seems stupid paying people to do nothing.
I couldn't agree more. Make anyone claiming unemployment benefits go out and do something useful. Same applies to criminals. Instead of banging people up for petty crimes, which cost us a fortune and do sod all to deter crime, give them a proper sentence of community work. I'm not talking 100 hours here. Many people work an 8 hour day and work about 230 ish days a year excluding weekends, holidays and bank holidays. If you would normally have been banged up for a year that's 230 days x 8 hours = 1840 hours of community work. I'm pretty sure we won't run out of unskilled jobs that need doing!
some sort of corporate tax break to take an intern, number dependent on size of company, perhaps a limit on the time allowed, get em working and getting experience so I guess another kind of apprenticeship?
Good luck Matt, even if its not want you want to do, take it seriously and make sure you impress. Because when the opportunity of something you really do want to do comes along, the first thing they will do is go back to this place for a reference.
What I think a lot of people struggle to comprehend when they get older is the lack of drive seen in youngsters, mainly created because for most, growing up has been relatively easy. I try and think now what I would be like back then.
I went to college at 16, didn't take it seriously and by six months I had a poor attendance record and realised I was going to waste the next year and a half I had left, even if I did pass. I was fortunate enough that I had taken my school work experience seriously, and had been recommended for a job from it. So I went back to them and was fortunate to impress enough again to secure the lowest job possible, filing papers. I got my head down, and worked my way up from there (i'm now well behind the curve where I should be, but I'm earning a living).
Where this is getting to though is I know that if I was 18 with no job in an environment where there are few jobs like now, I'm convinced I wouldn't be sitting up home playing computer games, I would have been loading up a wheelbarrow, pushing around semi detached roads playing the sob story that I haven't a job but desperate to do something, and mowing lawns for a tenner in summer and raking up leaves in winter. I'm while I'm here, i'll wash you car for a fiver. Get your head down, get repeat jobs and before you know it you're bringing in 200 odd quid a week doing just three a day, and having a great selling point in any interviews that you are pro active and have the right attitude.
To me, its simple to see. Sadly it appears too many youngsters don't see it that way.
Thing is AFKA, even those types of jobs are harder to find/make money from. How many car wash places are there now? When was the last time any of us bought something at the door? Why bother when you can get it cheaper in Sainsbury's.
Manpower used to be great for casual work if you didn't mind bending your back at 6.00am but often you'd start at 6.00 or 7.00 and be finished by 10.00 and still get a days money. Did I then go looking for more work door to door. Did I ****.
Don't know what the casual agencies are like now but I do know from clients who employ school kids and leavers that it is very mixed. One garden centre I work with employs dozens of "Saturday boys and girls". Some don't work well and get booted out but most do well and want to impress. And some get full time jobs if they want them. Others go off to uni and come back in the summer and Xmas to earn some cash.
I seem to remember that all kids were work shy, lazy and couldn't read and write proper in the 1970s as well. : - )
Yes we need to try and boost manufacturing, but we have to find the right things to make, since it was effectively the far east, and NOT Thatcher, that did for our manufacturing (IMO), and we still can't compete with them in low level manufacturing. In the 70's the government, under pressure from the unions, propped up the likes of British Leyland when we should have been looking to go more hi-tech which would've been sustainable. The quality of youngsters coming through now just isn't particularly good - exams have just been dumbed down (I recently re-took my professional qualification which I'm told is the equivalent of an 'A' level. I sat a 75 minute multiple choice exam which I completed in just 13 minutes and still passed!); and there are two many youngsters who just don't have basic skills.This has to change, but sadly it's hard for schools when they have to deal with the underclass whose parents do nothing for society but take. If immigrants are prepared to work for minimum wage why can't we?
I think we should have looked after BL a little better than we did. Like the French did for Renult and PC. It wasn't just the Red Robo and co that brought that company down.
Anyway to late for them now, what worries me is; who will be paying my pension in 20 years time?
In every recession, certain areas of employment are more vulnerable, and it's usually part time jobs and women that take the biggest hit. This time, youth unemployment figures are even worse. Not only do they lack work experience and, all too often, the skills needed by employers, but the lowered expectations of pension payments and having to work longer means that fewer jobs are being freed up. Do people remember, those that have been to Florida, all those very elderly women managing the queues at the attractions? That's where we're heading.
No-one will employ my 32 yr. PhD son as he has no work experience and is 'over-qualified' for supermarket type jobs. It's most certainly not about lack of effort, things really are very nasty right now and we do have a second jilted generation on our hands. The answer will lie, as ever, in a massive push to improve educational standards, and not phoney media study diversions. Employers need to be paid to take on apprentices, vocational training needs to be upped and perhaps some government ( and opposition) folk might care to ask why quite a few other countries are doing very much better than us and is there maybe something we could learn from them?
The biggest issue with BL was that they made rubbish cars and the build quality was around the 'that will do' philosphy in Jeremy Clarkeson's words. There was a time -in my lifetime - when an important factor in buying a product was that it was British - it then became a reason not to buy a product before you could quite understand why.
You can't and SHOULD NOT force young people to do a job they don't want to do.
No thats right, let them sit on their backsides and claim benefits whilst the rest of us do what ever we can to earn a wage and pay taxes for them to do nothing! Ummmm
I would say that 99% of the population do a job they don't want to do but you recognise that it's called work for a reason and you just get on with it. I don't have any particular interest in construction but i stuck at my surveying course even though i could have had an easier time and earnt more doing something else. Touch wood, it has stood me in good stead. I know it seems harsh but if they don't take the jobs, stick them in the prisons that they should be working on building and turn them into workhouses manufacturing simple things which would help pay for it. They'd soon take an apprenticeship then instead or work bloody hard at school to avoid ending up there. The social services and welfare benefits should be for those who genuinely need it, not for those who can't find the job they fancy. I don't know anybody who left school and was excited by the job they did.
Not an easy question to answer. Several major philosophical problems are what I perceive to be the root cause of the problem of youth unemployment. Firstly a culture of dumbing down and idle recreation hoisted onto many children at an early age. Children given everything they demand by over indulgent parents who perhaps feel a sense of guilt about working too hard, spending too much time at work and commuting and not paying enough attention to their children. Conversely, too many children ignored and abused by feckless and lazy parents.
An education system with too much emphasis on keeping clean hands, white collars and reading Shakespeare and other long dead poets, too much computing and not enough car maintenance and carpentry, farming and manufacturing. An education system which leads too many young people to believe that a degree in Culture, Meeja and Flower Arranging is an automatic passport to a life of high salaries, privilege and a 20 hour week.
A recent corrupt and venal political environment from Thatcher onto Major onto Blair/Brown and Cameron; politicians and the legal system bought, paid for and run by and for the advantage of merchants, money makers, bankers, stock brokers, financial illusionists and fakirs who are only interested in their own profits and the advancement and enrichment of their own narrow communities and to hell with anyone outside. A world view whereby low wage economies usually run by dictators get the contracts for everything from manufacturing pins to running computerised call centres. High wage economies turning more and more to ever cheaper and increasingly sophisticated computing power to manufacture and organise industry and commerce at the expense of a mass human workforce.
The loss of empire. No need for an army to keep the natives docile and no more Australias to house the undeserving poor and unwanted Britons.
An almost open door immigration policy which has become necessary as it seems that many young Britons (see above) have neither the desire, the spirit nor the ability to do what jobs there are available.
An over generous benefit system which attracts too many immigrants looking to exploit it and by so doing bleed potential investment funds from the economy as well as giving young people just enough cash to keep them docile and to prevent them from plotting revolution and major social change.
Apart from this, everything is c o o l for young people. Many are succeeding but alas, too many are not.
How to solve the problem Mmmmmmmm, belt tightening, a sense of reality, more pride and less pomp, buy British where you can, British jobs for British people even if the British people don't want them. Buy less rubbish and more quality, elect a government that tells Brussels to take a hike and will invest real money into the rebirth of British manufacturing. Teach children that the world does not owe them a living.
Colin T a few things mate i think you will find that the chap saying we should have gone British re the trains is anything but a "right winger".
I did recently 18 months doing nothing but working on OJEUs i could list down the pre qualifications if you wish . The legal advice pre -during and after came from Sharpe -Pritchards who are the specialist legal advisors re local and main gov on OJEU. You can weight 80/20 re cost or 70/30 (thats cost against quality) you can NOT include within the tender process a weighting that is bias to the UK----thats 100%.
Of course none of this is the fault of the left -------none ----nothing----zilch-----nil---ufck all---------------they take no responsability for ANYTHING----13 years of mass imigration that they denied for 13 years---has no bearing at all on youth employement ------nothing in anyway. They now have the front to call for Theresa Mays head because of the border controls (or lack of) is sickening.
My take on the long history of where we are now is:
1) Lied to about the benefits of joining the EU (be cheaper in the long run for the UK and save jobs !!). The Tories took us into the EU
2) Lied to about the level playing field of the Free Market and saw our industries smashed to bits by Thatcher
3) Lied to about nationalised industies loosing millions and sold off into the Free Market except companies like EDF are 75% state owned (France)
4) Lied to about mass immigration.
5) Lied to about the positives of the now admitted mass immigration
6) Lied to by statistics that show where people are employed from --i.e they ask "where are you living" not what nationality are you?"
The Tories wont do anything they love the low wages--Labour caused the majority of the issue and wont be about for another few years(thank f**k). The Liberals are a total sell out waste of space.
When i s first left school i was advised "dont take the first job you are offered" Jesus you have to feel for the kids now -- i dont see anyway that the UK un-employed will fall (in large numbers) for years maybe 7/8 years.
My advice to kids leaving school. I you can find a part time job that hasnt gone to a new comer take it ---if you cant find part time do charity stuff part time ---include it on your CV it looks good.
All the time we cede our capacity to make our own decisions about our own country to the EU there is little we can do in all honesty.
To be fair it's not just the EU as our own Civil Service (which in reality is effectively the government regardless of whether the talking puppets are red or blue) is essentially corporatist in attitude and will over regulate to the detriment of small businesses whom traditionally have employed most people in the UK. The reason for this is partly to protect its own power base by sending out vast hordes of inspectors and regulators to find something wrong and extort fines or penalties. A nice form of stealth taxation. Local Government is increasingly developing the same mentality in enforcing EU driven bin fascism and the like.
The answer in my opinion is Schumacher's "small is beautiful" doctrine but that will never happen in the present climate. When two companies merge when it comes to number of workers retained 1+1 is never 2 but invariably 11/2 or less (is this the 40+40x0+1 thread?:-) )
Boarded up high streets (and thus retail jobs, traditionally the preserve of youth) could be rejuvenated by throwing away the green dogma of man-made climate change. Stop mugging the motorist via exorbitant parking and congestion charges and encourage him to the high street. High streets have become shanty towns because people don't want to be ripped off.
If we were to leave the EU some of the money released could be used on public projects to clean up and improve run down brownfield site areas and, as part of this, apprenticeships in traditional construction trades could also be given.
I would also offer some sort of tax incentive for older workers to go part time and mentor suitable youngsters for the rest of the week.
None of this will happen though because of our supreme government in Brussels, the protectionist attitudes of the Public Sector and Trade Unions and the I'm alright Jack sod the rest of you attitude of the political and corporate class.
But why do you think we have had all this immigration GH? I think a lot of people thought things would change under the tories but they haven't. Why not? Maybe it's not as simple as that. Who knows? Surely if it was as simple and as blindingly obvious as it seems, they would do it.
No thats right, let them sit on their backsides and claim benefits whilst the rest of us do what ever we can to earn a wage and pay taxes for them to do nothing! Ummmm
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Just because we are young doesnt mean everyone without a job is 'sitting on backsides claiming benefits.'
But why do you think we have had all this immigration GH? I think a lot of people thought things would change under the tories but they haven't. Why not? Maybe it's not as simple as that. Who knows? Surely if it was as simple and as blindingly obvious as it seems, they would do it.
Much of the immigration is EU immigration courtesy of the Single European Act of 1986 signed by none other than Margaret Thatcher. That act essentially says that anyone in (what has now become) the EU can move freelywithin the Eu as it is effectively one country. The elected UK government, as long as it remains part of the EU, can do nothing about this.
That is why, much to his annoyance since he has been rumbled, Cameron talks about non-EU immigration these days as that is the only immigration he can do anything about.
Exactly - so the real question is why has no government since we entered the EU, withdrawn from it? We all like to think there are simple answers to these things but there aren't. It's like us going to war on the coat tails of America. We have to, we cannot survive on our own and the sooner people realise that and realise that there are far worse places than England to live, the sooner they can get on with making the most of it and enjoying their lives. Nothing is ever perfect and things could always be worse so you have to look at the alternatives on offer. Cut ourselves off from Europe and America?
Dan the Tories love all the cheap labour. Marx (not Groucho) said something like "capitalism can only exist on an endless supply of cheap labour" ----thats what the EU has produced. Why let counties in likeRomania/Bulgaria in ? their only cempetative advantage is their labour pool.
The Labour Party allowed in millions not for cheap labour but ideology -------to change the "face" of England for good----they have admitted it, hence them starting to twat on about the 5million not registered to vote.
In London youth un-employment is 20% in Lewisham its 25%---------------there are 4 Polish bakers/corner shops in Lewisham--------but mass immigartion has nothing to do with un-employment
I dont see a way out---cant see that we can leave the EU so therefore we MUST allow in EU nationals who will either work or claim the UK benefits which are usually higher here than in their home land.
If people think the economy is slow now-- what happens if inflation stays high for 4/5 years and people dont get wage rises for 4/5 years ? there will be a tiping point where people cant spend --the economy wont stall it will stop dead------mass un-employment not just high.
Regarding the British car industry, the problem was a lack of investment in research and development - they had a tired line-up of out of date cars which nobody wanted to buy. And then there were the build quality issues. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but huge investment was needed to turn that around and nobody was prepared to put that in.
But GH, the world is a constantly changing place and the alternative ,as i see it, is if we put our barriers up and don't join in, where will that leave us then? I'm no expert but i'd say that given the fact that everything is a bout economies of scale and the size of the market, if we all 'club together' in Europe, we may have more chance of surviving in the world when trading with giants like America and China. That's how i see it, and as with everything there are some down sides to it as well but the point i'm making is that we are tied into agreements that we just can't and probably wouldn't want to be, out of, because the alternatives are a lot worse. If successive governments have come to that conclusion as well, there must be something in it.
Blimey, what an interesting thread and collection of diverse ideas and politcal leanings. Firstly well done everyone for keeping it on track and respecting others views.
I suspect the answer is a little bit taken from everything suggested. My own simplistic views are that rather than printing money to do nothing other than sit on a banks balance sheet they should have taken the opportunity to pump it directly into local economies. There are masses of capital projects that could have been funded with this cash which would have led directly to an increase in demand for labour.
As things stand, everyone is in a state of limbo and even those employers doing well are not taking on staff but adopting a wait and see position because they have no confidence in the economy.
You have to find a way to put that confidence back but with the gov' pressing ahead with savage cuts across the public sector and determined to (competely unneccessarily IMO) attack pensions no one is spedning any money e.g I'm sitting on about £20-£25k worth of work that 'needs' doing on my property (new carpets throughout, new bathrooms, furniture, driveways, fascia's, etc). More than enough to create a job for a young person locally.
In the current climate though, as a public sector worker, I would be an idiot to go out and spend that money when I don't know if I will have a job myself in 6 months time...
You might be an idiot doing so as a private secor worker too and there is the rub, I also agree that it puzzles me why they print money to give to the banks and hope they spend it to help the economy rather than bypass them and ensure it is spent to help the economy. I suppose they will say -that's the system but people are going to start questioning that system more if things don't start too improve over the years ahead.
You can't and SHOULD NOT force young people to do a job they don't want to do.
No thats right, let them sit on their backsides and claim benefits whilst the rest of us do what ever we can to earn a wage and pay taxes for them to do nothing! Ummmm
I never said that, I'm not sure how this "quote" is linked to me. My point was that the Army/Navy/RAF should not be responsable for the unemployed, when someone said bring back national service.
My view on job un-employment benifit is the polar opposite to the "quote" linked to my name............ Strange
Got my induction for Sainsburys 6 week night temp on saturday.
19 years old, first time ive managed to get anything since I started looking when i left school at 16.
At least ive had/have college to occupy me up until the summer
Incidentally my mate who is 18 and not at college hasnt worked since he did a week in July, doing some basement fittings or something.
He has been looking non stop, fortunate enough to have finally been given 1 days work tomorrow, lifting , which he was over the moon about. Desperate times.
Going into college with no intention of going to uni was my worse mistake. Wish id got on the apprenticeship bandwagon.
Most places turn me away because of no past experience I reckon, because I can sell my self quite well when it comes to grades, CV etc.
last year cost me 800 quid to travel to college, same the year before, not good when i have no income.
Good luck and stick with it, remember that initially it is only for a few weeks over a manic time at Christmas so give it a right good go. Sainsbury (to state the obvious) is a big organisation with a need for all kinds of skills from butchers to security men from bakers to accountants. I got on the night driving caper while working for them out of the huge Sydenham Superstore a few years ago, moving stock between stores all over south and east London, Surrey and Kent, also worked doing home deliveries as well as working on the tills and shelf stacking, oh, and staff supervising at the West Wickham and Beckenham stores. If you show willing there is a lot of scope for promotion as many of the staff are part timers and are not looking for managerial/supervisory roles. Go for it and it would be nice to hear how it all goes for you, especially for any young people on here who are also either looking for or just starting work.
I graduated in July from a Russell group university and have been lucky enough to get a phd with funding for the next four years... I did have very good grades but my supervisor has since told me that I stood out because of the extensive research experience I had gained during my time at university....this experience was in the main voluntary (full time, not just the odd day) was losing about £250 a month because of it (I worked in a pharmacy at the weekends to pay for it), but ultimately in the end was worth it...other students couldn't be arsed to do this during their 3 months off and as such are struggling to get jobs.... I know its very difficult to get work, however especially in science, employees (in my case university profs) are normally.always willing to take on free help...its just a shame the majority of students don't use their initiative and pave their own careers through hard work and graft....most think they can walk into jobs as though its a right...
I am the furthest thing from a regular poster on this forum, I usually just read threads to find out what fellow Charlton fans are talking about, but some of the outrageous and ignorant codswallop spewing across this thread has infuriated me to such an extent that I am forced to post.
Let’s just deal with each point made one by one:
1. Build more prisons.
You want to base job creation on the incarceration of thousands of young people if they do not accept jobs which are forced upon them? Sorry, but I don’t really want to live in a Nazi police state.
2. Young people are too lazy to apply for lowly paid jobs.
I got 9 As in my GCSEs, I got AAB at A Level and I got a 2:1 at English Law, French Law and French Language at university. During this time I did more than my fair share of part time jobs and a bit of work experience. I’ve worked at a supermarket, at a builders merchants, as a pizza delivery driver, as a student ambassador, as a shoes salesman, as an administrator and on the census. Hard working? Maybe not, because I’ve had a good life so far.
And guess what job I’m currently doing - scanning, printing and shredding for a company for piss poor money despite having applied for in excess of 50 graduate positions since finishing uni in July.
Have I been lazy?
Have I got unrealistic expectations?
If someone had told me that, once I graduated, I’d be shredding paper I would have left school at 16 and become a trainee electrician. WE NEED BETTER ADVICE.
Admittedly the 10 most popular degrees do include design studies and psychology. But it also has nursing, business management, law, medicine, computer science, english studies and social work.
Comments
some sort of corporate tax break to take an intern, number dependent on size of company, perhaps a limit on the time allowed, get em working and getting experience so I guess another kind of apprenticeship?
What I think a lot of people struggle to comprehend when they get older is the lack of drive seen in youngsters, mainly created because for most, growing up has been relatively easy. I try and think now what I would be like back then.
I went to college at 16, didn't take it seriously and by six months I had a poor attendance record and realised I was going to waste the next year and a half I had left, even if I did pass. I was fortunate enough that I had taken my school work experience seriously, and had been recommended for a job from it. So I went back to them and was fortunate to impress enough again to secure the lowest job possible, filing papers. I got my head down, and worked my way up from there (i'm now well behind the curve where I should be, but I'm earning a living).
Where this is getting to though is I know that if I was 18 with no job in an environment where there are few jobs like now, I'm convinced I wouldn't be sitting up home playing computer games, I would have been loading up a wheelbarrow, pushing around semi detached roads playing the sob story that I haven't a job but desperate to do something, and mowing lawns for a tenner in summer and raking up leaves in winter. I'm while I'm here, i'll wash you car for a fiver. Get your head down, get repeat jobs and before you know it you're bringing in 200 odd quid a week doing just three a day, and having a great selling point in any interviews that you are pro active and have the right attitude.
To me, its simple to see. Sadly it appears too many youngsters don't see it that way.
Manpower used to be great for casual work if you didn't mind bending your back at 6.00am but often you'd start at 6.00 or 7.00 and be finished by 10.00 and still get a days money. Did I then go looking for more work door to door. Did I ****.
Don't know what the casual agencies are like now but I do know from clients who employ school kids and leavers that it is very mixed. One garden centre I work with employs dozens of "Saturday boys and girls". Some don't work well and get booted out but most do well and want to impress. And some get full time jobs if they want them. Others go off to uni and come back in the summer and Xmas to earn some cash.
I seem to remember that all kids were work shy, lazy and couldn't read and write proper in the 1970s as well. : - )
I think we should have looked after BL a little better than we did. Like the French did for Renult and PC. It wasn't just the Red Robo and co that brought that company down.
Anyway to late for them now, what worries me is; who will be paying my pension in 20 years time?
In every recession, certain areas of employment are more vulnerable, and it's usually part time jobs and women that take the biggest hit. This time, youth unemployment figures are even worse. Not only do they lack work experience and, all too often, the skills needed by employers, but the lowered expectations of pension payments and having to work longer means that fewer jobs are being freed up. Do people remember, those that have been to Florida, all those very elderly women managing the queues at the attractions? That's where we're heading.
No-one will employ my 32 yr. PhD son as he has no work experience and is 'over-qualified' for supermarket type jobs. It's most certainly not about lack of effort, things really are very nasty right now and we do have a second jilted generation on our hands. The answer will lie, as ever, in a massive push to improve educational standards, and not phoney media study diversions. Employers need to be paid to take on apprentices, vocational training needs to be upped and perhaps some government ( and opposition) folk might care to ask why quite a few other countries are doing very much better than us and is there maybe something we could learn from them?
The biggest issue with BL was that they made rubbish cars and the build quality was around the 'that will do' philosphy in Jeremy Clarkeson's words. There was a time -in my lifetime - when an important factor in buying a product was that it was British - it then became a reason not to buy a product before you could quite understand why.
I would say that 99% of the population do a job they don't want to do but you recognise that it's called work for a reason and you just get on with it. I don't have any particular interest in construction but i stuck at my surveying course even though i could have had an easier time and earnt more doing something else. Touch wood, it has stood me in good stead. I know it seems harsh but if they don't take the jobs, stick them in the prisons that they should be working on building and turn them into workhouses manufacturing simple things which would help pay for it. They'd soon take an apprenticeship then instead or work bloody hard at school to avoid ending up there. The social services and welfare benefits should be for those who genuinely need it, not for those who can't find the job they fancy. I don't know anybody who left school and was excited by the job they did.
Not an easy question to answer. Several major philosophical problems are what I perceive to be the root cause of the problem of youth unemployment. Firstly a culture of dumbing down and idle recreation hoisted onto many children at an early age. Children given everything they demand by over indulgent parents who perhaps feel a sense of guilt about working too hard, spending too much time at work and commuting and not paying enough attention to their children. Conversely, too many children ignored and abused by feckless and lazy parents.
An education system with too much emphasis on keeping clean hands, white collars and reading Shakespeare and other long dead poets, too much computing and not enough car maintenance and carpentry, farming and manufacturing. An education system which leads too many young people to believe that a degree in Culture, Meeja and Flower Arranging is an automatic passport to a life of high salaries, privilege and a 20 hour week.
A recent corrupt and venal political environment from Thatcher onto Major onto Blair/Brown and Cameron; politicians and the legal system bought, paid for and run by and for the advantage of merchants, money makers, bankers, stock brokers, financial illusionists and fakirs who are only interested in their own profits and the advancement and enrichment of their own narrow communities and to hell with anyone outside. A world view whereby low wage economies usually run by dictators get the contracts for everything from manufacturing pins to running computerised call centres. High wage economies turning more and more to ever cheaper and increasingly sophisticated computing power to manufacture and organise industry and commerce at the expense of a mass human workforce.
The loss of empire. No need for an army to keep the natives docile and no more Australias to house the undeserving poor and unwanted Britons.
An almost open door immigration policy which has become necessary as it seems that many young Britons (see above) have neither the desire, the spirit nor the ability to do what jobs there are available.
An over generous benefit system which attracts too many immigrants looking to exploit it and by so doing bleed potential investment funds from the economy as well as giving young people just enough cash to keep them docile and to prevent them from plotting revolution and major social change.
Apart from this, everything is c o o l for young people. Many are succeeding but alas, too many are not.
How to solve the problem Mmmmmmmm, belt tightening, a sense of reality, more pride and less pomp, buy British where you can, British jobs for British people even if the British people don't want them. Buy less rubbish and more quality, elect a government that tells Brussels to take a hike and will invest real money into the rebirth of British manufacturing. Teach children that the world does not owe them a living.
All the time we cede our capacity to make our own decisions about our own country to the EU there is little we can do in all honesty.
To be fair it's not just the EU as our own Civil Service (which in reality is effectively the government regardless of whether the talking puppets are red or blue) is essentially corporatist in attitude and will over regulate to the detriment of small businesses whom traditionally have employed most people in the UK. The reason for this is partly to protect its own power base by sending out vast hordes of inspectors and regulators to find something wrong and extort fines or penalties. A nice form of stealth taxation. Local Government is increasingly developing the same mentality in enforcing EU driven bin fascism and the like.
The answer in my opinion is Schumacher's "small is beautiful" doctrine but that will never happen in the present climate. When two companies merge when it comes to number of workers retained 1+1 is never 2 but invariably 11/2 or less (is this the 40+40x0+1 thread?:-) )
Boarded up high streets (and thus retail jobs, traditionally the preserve of youth) could be rejuvenated by throwing away the green dogma of man-made climate change. Stop mugging the motorist via exorbitant parking and congestion charges and encourage him to the high street. High streets have become shanty towns because people don't want to be ripped off.
If we were to leave the EU some of the money released could be used on public projects to clean up and improve run down brownfield site areas and, as part of this, apprenticeships in traditional construction trades could also be given.
I would also offer some sort of tax incentive for older workers to go part time and mentor suitable youngsters for the rest of the week.
None of this will happen though because of our supreme government in Brussels, the protectionist attitudes of the Public Sector and Trade Unions and the I'm alright Jack sod the rest of you attitude of the political and corporate class.
Northern Rock plc will be rebranded as Virgin Money, which has pledged no compulsory job cuts for three years.
Well thats a few more people that need to rethink their future
Much of the immigration is EU immigration courtesy of the Single European Act of 1986 signed by none other than Margaret Thatcher. That act essentially says that anyone in (what has now become) the EU can move freelywithin the Eu as it is effectively one country. The elected UK government, as long as it remains part of the EU, can do nothing about this.
That is why, much to his annoyance since he has been rumbled, Cameron talks about non-EU immigration these days as that is the only immigration he can do anything about.
Regarding the British car industry, the problem was a lack of investment in research and development - they had a tired line-up of out of date cars which nobody wanted to buy. And then there were the build quality issues. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but huge investment was needed to turn that around and nobody was prepared to put that in.
But GH, the world is a constantly changing place and the alternative ,as i see it, is if we put our barriers up and don't join in, where will that leave us then? I'm no expert but i'd say that given the fact that everything is a bout economies of scale and the size of the market, if we all 'club together' in Europe, we may have more chance of surviving in the world when trading with giants like America and China. That's how i see it, and as with everything there are some down sides to it as well but the point i'm making is that we are tied into agreements that we just can't and probably wouldn't want to be, out of, because the alternatives are a lot worse. If successive governments have come to that conclusion as well, there must be something in it.
Blimey, what an interesting thread and collection of diverse ideas and politcal leanings. Firstly well done everyone for keeping it on track and respecting others views.
I suspect the answer is a little bit taken from everything suggested. My own simplistic views are that rather than printing money to do nothing other than sit on a banks balance sheet they should have taken the opportunity to pump it directly into local economies. There are masses of capital projects that could have been funded with this cash which would have led directly to an increase in demand for labour.
As things stand, everyone is in a state of limbo and even those employers doing well are not taking on staff but adopting a wait and see position because they have no confidence in the economy.
You have to find a way to put that confidence back but with the gov' pressing ahead with savage cuts across the public sector and determined to (competely unneccessarily IMO) attack pensions no one is spedning any money e.g I'm sitting on about £20-£25k worth of work that 'needs' doing on my property (new carpets throughout, new bathrooms, furniture, driveways, fascia's, etc). More than enough to create a job for a young person locally.
In the current climate though, as a public sector worker, I would be an idiot to go out and spend that money when I don't know if I will have a job myself in 6 months time...
I am the furthest thing from a regular poster on this forum, I usually just read threads to find out what fellow Charlton fans are talking about, but some of the outrageous and ignorant codswallop spewing across this thread has infuriated me to such an extent that I am forced to post.
Let’s just deal with each point made one by one:
1. Build more prisons.
You want to base job creation on the incarceration of thousands of young people if they do not accept jobs which are forced upon them? Sorry, but I don’t really want to live in a Nazi police state.
It currently costs in excess of £40,000 per year per prisoner (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/28/justice.prisonsandprobation). JSA is £50 per week and ends after 6 months - a cost of £1,300 to the taxpayer. So your point has as much economical authority as it does moral authority.
2. Young people are too lazy to apply for lowly paid jobs.
I got 9 As in my GCSEs, I got AAB at A Level and I got a 2:1 at English Law, French Law and French Language at university. During this time I did more than my fair share of part time jobs and a bit of work experience. I’ve worked at a supermarket, at a builders merchants, as a pizza delivery driver, as a student ambassador, as a shoes salesman, as an administrator and on the census. Hard working? Maybe not, because I’ve had a good life so far.
And guess what job I’m currently doing - scanning, printing and shredding for a company for piss poor money despite having applied for in excess of 50 graduate positions since finishing uni in July.
Have I been lazy?
Have I got unrealistic expectations?
If someone had told me that, once I graduated, I’d be shredding paper I would have left school at 16 and become a trainee electrician. WE NEED BETTER ADVICE.
3. People do waster and easy ‘arts’ degrees.
Factually wrong - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/8695883/The-top-10-most-popular-degree-courses.html
Admittedly the 10 most popular degrees do include design studies and psychology. But it also has nursing, business management, law, medicine, computer science, english studies and social work.