Am I the only one who doesn't understand how there are over 2 million people claiming unemployment benefits?
The jobs aren't where the people are. You can't up sticks and move 100 miles for a NMW job. That's the problem when wages are poor and when unemployment benefits are only 19% of the average wage.
Well.according to Norman Tebbit they should be getting on their bikes and going to the jobs. That's the Tory way isn't it?
There are many complex answers to that question. If I live in Glasgow and there is a zero hours factory job going in Bournemouth do I move for it? If I can’t drive do I suddenly become a truck driver. If I have physical disabilities do I wheel my chair into the cabbage fields and get picking. I’d also say a percentage of those currently unemployed are for various reasons unemployable. We as a country have a choice let them starve to death or support them.
Any of these - 1. They are not qualified to drive lorries. 2. They don't want a horrible lorry driving job anyway. 3. They live in a city/town many miles away from the fruit and veg rotting in the fields (remember the "land army" thing last year?). 4. They used to be fishermen, their company has gone tits up and there are no other jobs in Peterhead (I saw the place in July). 5. Most British people are not prepared to work 50 or 60 hours a week on minimum wage. There are other reasons but I can't be arsed with listing them.
To add some more reasons: Single parents of children under school age, who don’t have family support for free babysitting, would pay far, far more in childcare than they could earn in a minimum wage job. People who have caring responsibilities are working full time (as in 24 hours a day), just not in a job that is recognised as such. There are lots of people who struggle to work for mental health reasons who need better support. Same with those struggling with addictions. Same with people with physical disabilities who could work, and want to, but struggle to find employment. Exprisoners can find it really hard to find employment. It would also be useful to know how many of the 2 million is a rolling figure with some people only claiming for a few months who then find a job and new people who find themselves unemployed claim for a few months and so on. Rather than it being 2 million people never working as it is often portrayed.
There is a large minority of people whose profession is claiming benefits. I am fairly sure most posters on the this forum knows somebody in such a position. As for moving for a job we were quite happy for workers to travel from all over Europe to fill these vacancies. Historically people have moved areas to find work why not now?
There's no problem moving location for a job. The issue is moving location for a job that pays minimum wage, which if you haven't been paying attention is so pathetically low that nobody would be able to afford to move house to a new part of the country while earning that.
With a bit of luck, labour shortages will lead to higher wages. In the long term that would help decrease unemployment, particularly for those groups where currently work doesn’t pay. I’ve yet to see any statistics that show a breakdown for that 2 million. For example, how many have caring responsibilities, how many live in areas with close to full employment etc. Without that it’s hard to have a proper debate about the right solution.
The unemployment rate in the UK for "Full Employment" is 3.9%, the current unemployment rate is 4.7% so the excess unemployment is currently about 340,000. Not enough to replace the 1,000,000 or so Eastern Europeans that have left since 2020.
It's almost as if we could do with an influx of foreign workers. If only there was some kind of labour agreement with the EU we could set up...
I would suggest most of the reasons already given, plus crap wages and ridiculous zero hour contracts that make it too worrying or not worthwhile to take the risk of leaving the benefit system in case if it doesn’t work out they can’t get back in.
I worked in Spain one summer. Absolutely horrendous pay, even worse accommodation but I had the time of my life as I got to live in Spain for a few months with other people my age. I’d never in a million years do that job at home (trying to get people into pubs, cleaning up after the foam party until 7am after starting work at 6pm and working only on commission) but I did it then for the ‘free’ holiday. Loads of fruit/veg pickers do the same thing. It’s absolutely insane that people thought there’d be loads of British citizens who would jump at the chance to do that here. Everyone knows it’s horrible, back breaking work which is why you get people from a different country from the one who needs the picking doing it (e.g. British citizens may go to Australia to pick but would never pick here).
Like hop picking back in the 50s, a bit of a laugh and country air for a week or two for folk from the smoke. I went tatie picking one year as a school kid, wouldn't do that for a living....
The people who abuse the benefit system are rarely ‘unemployed’. Frankly there’s not enough money in it. Being ‘unemployed’, is similar to working for NMW, ie, not quite enough to live on. However if you’re seriously ill, you’ll get just enough to live on, and if you’re disabled you could start thinking about a ‘normal’ life (apart from the disability obvs). Add in material differences like having a disabled child, and therefore being a carer. But whether on JSA or Universal Credit, simply being ‘unemployed’ isn’t a sensible career choice. Ergo people making a career out of claiming benefits aren’t relevant to a discussion re unemployment statistics.
It was said last week for the first time ever, unemployment numbers had dropped whilst job vacancies had risen.