Is unemployment a big problem in the UK
Your thoughts?
I personally think more needs to be done.
1) More apprenticeships
2) Unis providing placements for students to ensure they do well after graduating
I personally think more needs to be done.
1) More apprenticeships
2) Unis providing placements for students to ensure they do well after graduating
Scroll to see replies
Agreed that there is always more to be done, but unemployment is at record lows. There is more of an issue with squeezed incomes and the fact that people in poverty are now more likely to be in full time employment than the number of people not in work at all.
there's multiple types of unemployed people
there's dropouts or adults with no qualifications, may or may not have kids
there's gcse leavers and college students
there's uni/grad students
there's adult parents with education and employment background
there's disabled
there's older people
there's criminals
there's foreigners who don't count statistically as they're undocumented but they certainly count realistically when they jeopardise their living environment
these are the main groups of people who face unemployment and who ALTOGETHER challenge the country, because they're all on some sort of benefits, or have been, or need to be but technically didn't qualify. And they fall into poverty or damn near. Their issues and starting points are diverse and are all sociocultural problems, I trust.
The dropouts most likely have a troubling home/environment (first-generation, deprived area, etc), or have personal problem like a learning difficulty that still doesn't qualify them as disabled, automatically. As teens they might be too immature to search for work and then later wake up as over 18s with no experience and no qualifications and probably kids. They trot down to council and get benefits or are put on a waiting list and wind up homeless. They meantime get on JSA as a last but readily available "solution." I get it 100%.
The ones who left school WITH gcse's are still minors and can try to get work or volunteer but most likely won't and continue on to college then to uni and get on dole or live off their parents.
They turn into uni students or grads with degrees at whichever class and could be from open uni, working class, middle, upper, rich, but if you bring nothing to the table with no former experience you won't get picked up or you'll get sacked soon enough. OR perhaps there's just nothing available and there's really sod all you can do. That's not a personal issue, that's environment. They might work as baristas way under their education level. They blew their student loans or need money to put it back or some other kind of loan scam and take work from the above categories, perpetuating part of the country's cyclical unemployment.
They usually turn into adult parents with education and basic employment and rent, then get kicked out suddenly, or laid off. Then you get a middle classer needing benefits or public housing. Or they stop working and become full time parents on the dole despite qualifications.
The disabled is self explanatory, but they usually volunteer or find work at the places where they've been treated.
Criminals is self explanatory but they dont all wind up the same. They might work as carers at a youth home or something or detention unit (seriously) or not work at all lol.
Then there's foreigners who get all the work
but many don't even work, some are just as scruffy and entitled and lazy.
So as you see there's different groups, different situations, and therefore different solutions, not one group to blame. There's really nothing that can be done as a one-off, it's gonna take efforts for and from everyone.
That's my take
there's dropouts or adults with no qualifications, may or may not have kids
there's gcse leavers and college students
there's uni/grad students
there's adult parents with education and employment background
there's disabled
there's older people
there's criminals
there's foreigners who don't count statistically as they're undocumented but they certainly count realistically when they jeopardise their living environment
these are the main groups of people who face unemployment and who ALTOGETHER challenge the country, because they're all on some sort of benefits, or have been, or need to be but technically didn't qualify. And they fall into poverty or damn near. Their issues and starting points are diverse and are all sociocultural problems, I trust.
The dropouts most likely have a troubling home/environment (first-generation, deprived area, etc), or have personal problem like a learning difficulty that still doesn't qualify them as disabled, automatically. As teens they might be too immature to search for work and then later wake up as over 18s with no experience and no qualifications and probably kids. They trot down to council and get benefits or are put on a waiting list and wind up homeless. They meantime get on JSA as a last but readily available "solution." I get it 100%.
The ones who left school WITH gcse's are still minors and can try to get work or volunteer but most likely won't and continue on to college then to uni and get on dole or live off their parents.
They turn into uni students or grads with degrees at whichever class and could be from open uni, working class, middle, upper, rich, but if you bring nothing to the table with no former experience you won't get picked up or you'll get sacked soon enough. OR perhaps there's just nothing available and there's really sod all you can do. That's not a personal issue, that's environment. They might work as baristas way under their education level. They blew their student loans or need money to put it back or some other kind of loan scam and take work from the above categories, perpetuating part of the country's cyclical unemployment.
They usually turn into adult parents with education and basic employment and rent, then get kicked out suddenly, or laid off. Then you get a middle classer needing benefits or public housing. Or they stop working and become full time parents on the dole despite qualifications.
The disabled is self explanatory, but they usually volunteer or find work at the places where they've been treated.
Criminals is self explanatory but they dont all wind up the same. They might work as carers at a youth home or something or detention unit (seriously) or not work at all lol.
Then there's foreigners who get all the work
but many don't even work, some are just as scruffy and entitled and lazy.So as you see there's different groups, different situations, and therefore different solutions, not one group to blame. There's really nothing that can be done as a one-off, it's gonna take efforts for and from everyone.
That's my take
Original post by ByEeek
Agreed that there is always more to be done, but unemployment is at record lows. There is more of an issue with squeezed incomes and the fact that people in poverty are now more likely to be in full time employment than the number of people not in work at all.
That's sort of the problem though, unemployment is historically low and depending on your economic view on full employment it may well be too low.
With such tiny unemployment figures you should see power swing from employer to employee, wages should rise and the problem will correct itself. That isn' happening though, wages are stagnating and the situation is prolonging itself seemingly indefinitely.
Original post by mojojojo101
That's sort of the problem though, unemployment is historically low and depending on your economic view on full employment it may well be too low.
With such tiny unemployment figures you should see power swing from employer to employee, wages should rise and the problem will correct itself. That isn' happening though, wages are stagnating and the situation is prolonging itself seemingly indefinitely.
With such tiny unemployment figures you should see power swing from employer to employee, wages should rise and the problem will correct itself. That isn' happening though, wages are stagnating and the situation is prolonging itself seemingly indefinitely.
Agreed. So maybe the problem is a weak economy, not employment and the pressure that should put on wage increases? Wages are going up because employers can't afford to pay more.
I believe that voluntary unemployment is the biggest issue as well as cyclical unemployment
Welfare is the third biggest payment out of the governments budget which includes benefits I understand that many people on benefits such as disability benefits can’t go out to work and aren’t able to get a job however many people are voluntarily unemployed because they find they are better off being on welfare payments from the state. As a result of this I believe that the lower tax-free income rate should be increased to at least £15,000 so that people will be better off working rather than receiving benefits.
cyclical unemployment is unemployment caused by low demand for labour in certain industries. This is things like the secondary industry in the UK. We don’t have much of a demand for manufacturing and labour jobs just because there isn’t a market for them in the UK as much as there are in other countries as a result people who have manufacturing skills find themselves unemployed. To fix this type of unemployment I believe the government should put more spending into training and apprenticeships so that people can improve on their skills and find jobs in new industries. due to cyclical unemployment we see nowadays more people going to university and getting degrees because qualifications are more valued now in the job market and more than likely someone with a degree as well as experience will probably get a job when pitched against someone without a degree who still have experience just because employers are looking for a candidate with both these attributes. The government has encouraged more candidates to go to university after college by providing the student loan and setting up easy repayment terms which many people find affordable.
Welfare is the third biggest payment out of the governments budget which includes benefits I understand that many people on benefits such as disability benefits can’t go out to work and aren’t able to get a job however many people are voluntarily unemployed because they find they are better off being on welfare payments from the state. As a result of this I believe that the lower tax-free income rate should be increased to at least £15,000 so that people will be better off working rather than receiving benefits.
cyclical unemployment is unemployment caused by low demand for labour in certain industries. This is things like the secondary industry in the UK. We don’t have much of a demand for manufacturing and labour jobs just because there isn’t a market for them in the UK as much as there are in other countries as a result people who have manufacturing skills find themselves unemployed. To fix this type of unemployment I believe the government should put more spending into training and apprenticeships so that people can improve on their skills and find jobs in new industries. due to cyclical unemployment we see nowadays more people going to university and getting degrees because qualifications are more valued now in the job market and more than likely someone with a degree as well as experience will probably get a job when pitched against someone without a degree who still have experience just because employers are looking for a candidate with both these attributes. The government has encouraged more candidates to go to university after college by providing the student loan and setting up easy repayment terms which many people find affordable.
The vast majority of disabled people do work or want to work. That employment among disabled people has increased is a good thing.
In any case, the main disability benefit - DLA/PIP - is not an out-of-work benefit, it's paid regardless. Employment Support Allowance, which is an incapacity benefit, is quite different: obviously there's some overlap, but it's not directly a disability benefit.
In any case, the main disability benefit - DLA/PIP - is not an out-of-work benefit, it's paid regardless. Employment Support Allowance, which is an incapacity benefit, is quite different: obviously there's some overlap, but it's not directly a disability benefit.
Original post by ineedtorevise127
Your thoughts?
I personally think more needs to be done.
1) More apprenticeships
2) Unis providing placements for students to ensure they do well after graduating
I personally think more needs to be done.
1) More apprenticeships
2) Unis providing placements for students to ensure they do well after graduating
Yes especially for the unemployed.
Especially for the ones suck in dead end jobs which they are over qualified for.
Yes for the ones who dont have any job security on zero hour contracts.
It's not unemployment that is the problem, rather in-work poverty.
The UK is in a strange position at the moment, a low unemployment rate is having very little positive effect on the wider economy. It's very, very difficult (but not impossible) to get the unemployment much lower than it is right now in any country, since there will always be some people who are essentially just unemployable (i.e. even if jobs existed, their attitude and lack of skills would exclude them from being eligible to do it)
A much bigger problem for the economy right now is the huge squeeze on spending power for anybody who isn't on the housing ladder. Many non-homeowners who are in work on low wages are only in a marginally better place than a lot of people who are out of work because, despite their earnings, they're trapped in a situation where their wages barely cover their monthly bills and living expenses. (In many cases, their wages fall short and they're actually needing to take out loans to cover rent and bills, so there's a potential "debt bubble" looming too, especially on things like car finance deals)
The UK's economy has essentially been based on property and home ownership for a very long time, so that makes it more resilient against financial shocks, but also makes it harder to grow in any meaningful way because it's a small island with a lot of building and planning restrictions (We don't have the space to just build houses anywhere - Roads and other infrastructure need to be carefully planned to cope with population changes and prevent towns/cities from becoming unliveable).
In the the past, the UK had pushed through periods like this by raising income and getting more homeowners; there currently aren't enough houses in existence for this to happen - increasing wages and reducing unemployment is currently just feeding inflation and little else. (The national minimum wage has increased a lot over the past few years, but people earning the minimum wage are just paying higher rent, higher energy bills, higher food costs, etc.)
But even while low earners are the ones who are in the worst trouble, even people who earn a more reasonable wage, yet live in an area where housing is expensive, are spending many more years paying out more than half their salary every month to a private landlord. As those years pass, they struggle to put aside enough money for a deposit while they chase a moving target caused by the constant increases in house prices.
So, really, the big problem in the UK is the broken housing market - if the UK can fix that, then it might be able to reap the benefits of its impressive low unemployment rate, assuming that unemployment is still low by the time this happens.
A much bigger problem for the economy right now is the huge squeeze on spending power for anybody who isn't on the housing ladder. Many non-homeowners who are in work on low wages are only in a marginally better place than a lot of people who are out of work because, despite their earnings, they're trapped in a situation where their wages barely cover their monthly bills and living expenses. (In many cases, their wages fall short and they're actually needing to take out loans to cover rent and bills, so there's a potential "debt bubble" looming too, especially on things like car finance deals)
The UK's economy has essentially been based on property and home ownership for a very long time, so that makes it more resilient against financial shocks, but also makes it harder to grow in any meaningful way because it's a small island with a lot of building and planning restrictions (We don't have the space to just build houses anywhere - Roads and other infrastructure need to be carefully planned to cope with population changes and prevent towns/cities from becoming unliveable).
In the the past, the UK had pushed through periods like this by raising income and getting more homeowners; there currently aren't enough houses in existence for this to happen - increasing wages and reducing unemployment is currently just feeding inflation and little else. (The national minimum wage has increased a lot over the past few years, but people earning the minimum wage are just paying higher rent, higher energy bills, higher food costs, etc.)
But even while low earners are the ones who are in the worst trouble, even people who earn a more reasonable wage, yet live in an area where housing is expensive, are spending many more years paying out more than half their salary every month to a private landlord. As those years pass, they struggle to put aside enough money for a deposit while they chase a moving target caused by the constant increases in house prices.
So, really, the big problem in the UK is the broken housing market - if the UK can fix that, then it might be able to reap the benefits of its impressive low unemployment rate, assuming that unemployment is still low by the time this happens.
Original post by robbiecee2
The welfare state should be replaced with a Universal basic income/negative income tax.
So those who are disabled or homeless shouldn't get as much help as they could if benefits weren't diverted to people who don't need it?
Original post by bob072
So those who are disabled or homeless shouldn't get as much help as they could if benefits weren't diverted to people who don't need it?
Yes, I think they should a higher rate or top ups.
Original post by ineedtorevise127
Your thoughts?
I personally think more needs to be done.
1) More apprenticeships
2) Unis providing placements for students to ensure they do well after graduating
I personally think more needs to be done.
1) More apprenticeships
2) Unis providing placements for students to ensure they do well after graduating
Unemployment is at record lows, unemployment isn’t a problem.
Low wages and job security is a problem.
Original post by robbiecee2
Yes, I think they should a higher rate or top ups.
That negates one of the main points of a universal income.
Original post by paul514
That negates one of the main points of a universal income.
It doesn’t, there are many different ideas about how a negative income tax or universal basic income should be implemented
Original post by robbiecee2
It doesn’t, there are many different ideas about how a negative income tax or universal basic income should be implemented
If it isn’t to replace benefits then seriously that is one of the main points
Original post by ineedtorevise127
Your thoughts?
I personally think more needs to be done.
1) More apprenticeships
2) Unis providing placements for students to ensure they do well after graduating
I personally think more needs to be done.
1) More apprenticeships
2) Unis providing placements for students to ensure they do well after graduating
Are you mad? Unemployment is at an all time low. If you want a country that has bad unemployment look at Spain.
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