No I didn't! Apologies.

0.7% certainly fits the description of "not much growth".
"Still 8% below what it was in 2008" fits the description too.
Especially after three years.

Q. How is he doing with the deficit?
A. 100% out on his prediction of how long it will take and so far the deficit is only reduced by 30%.

Q. How is he doing with debt?
A. Risen by 50% since he took over.


Solve the following mathematical problem (it's an easy one) ...
If a country has 2,500,000 people with no jobs and has 500,000 vacancies, how many of the those 2,500,000 people will get jobs?

Clue : How many times does 2,500,000 go into 500,000?
Another clue : Job Centres can't help people back into work that doesn't exist.

Wicked

Another interesting question is how many of those 2,500,000 want those 500,000 jobs? Why are there still skills shortages in a lot of industries in this country and why do so many Eastern Europeans regard the UK as easy street because of how easy it is to find jobs?

Part of the answer is the nature of those jobs being of a short term or "casual" nature - I work with a lot of employment agencies and they are very good, extremely proficient in sniffing out and then filling posts for two shifts a week, or ten days shift work spread across three weeks, or similar.

Which is fine and dandy if you are a single person in short term rented furnished accommodation that can be changed with little notice, your own transport and availability 7 days a week - a newly arrived immigrant for instance - but much more difficult if you have been permanently resident in your district for some time with children in local schools, a wife working, a reliance on public transport and most important, a reliance on tax credits or other benefits or even JSA that will be stopped when you take up temporary work, requiring you to go through the whole long winded process of re-applying, and the waiting period, when your temp work comes to an end.

Interesting. You've just provided anecdotal support for what I've suspected for some time. From what I've heard/read, there's also often a situation where the migrant worker will put up with pretty lousy accommodation because they don't intend to stay long-term.

I think I mentioned elsewhere the difficulty of people being able to sign back on after seasonal work – which can cover everything from any form of work in places that benefit from tourism to the agricultural sector, never mind Christmas.

But what you're saying suggests a culture/system that is not geared to the long term and security for the individual/workforce.

Quote ="Saddened!"Another interesting question is how many of those 2,500,000 want those 500,000 jobs? ...'" I'm not sure of your point, unless you're trying to suggest that most of them are lazy good-for-nothings. Let's look at the numbers. Best estimates are that there are about 475,000 long-term unemployed ... this will be the category that contains the workshy, so we are still looking at a number greater than 2 million who DO want work. But, of course, not all of those 475,000 will be workshy, there are many and various reasons for being long term unemployed (e.g. 90% of employers don't feel confident hiring someone who has been out of work for more than six months(*) ) ... so the over-2-million estimate of those wanting work is probably a very low one. Quote ="Saddened!"...Why are there still skills shortages in a lot of industries in this country...'" Again, I'm not sure of your point. I'd suggest there are many reasons for skills shortages but I can't see how workshyness is a logical contender as a major reason. Quote ="Saddened!"... and why do so many Eastern Europeans regard the UK as easy street because of how easy it is to find jobs?'" Do they? Reports I have read suggest that more than half go home disillusioned and broke, having not found the streets paved with gold. Also, many (or maybe even most) Easterners who arrive here are single, mobile, have no ties, are used to much lower wages and have few outgoings to pay for. (*) Source: www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs ... -work.html Whilst the BCC is crap at economics, it can conduct a poll adequately enough.

Quote ="Saddened!"Another interesting question is how many of those 2,500,000 want those 500,000 jobs? ...'" I'm not sure of your point, unless you're trying to suggest that most of them are lazy good-for-nothings. Let's look at the numbers. Best estimates are that there are about 475,000 long-term unemployed ... this will be the category that contains the workshy, so we are still looking at a number greater than 2 million who DO want work. But, of course, not all of those 475,000 will be workshy, there are many and various reasons for being long term unemployed (e.g. 90% of employers don't feel confident hiring someone who has been out of work for more than six months(*) ) ... so the over-2-million estimate of those wanting work is probably a very low one. Quote ="Saddened!"...Why are there still skills shortages in a lot of industries in this country...'" Again, I'm not sure of your point. I'd suggest there are many reasons for skills shortages but I can't see how workshyness is a logical contender as a major reason. Quote ="Saddened!"... and why do so many Eastern Europeans regard the UK as easy street because of how easy it is to find jobs?'" Do they? Reports I have read suggest that more than half go home disillusioned and broke, having not found the streets paved with gold. Also, many (or maybe even most) Easterners who arrive here are single, mobile, have no ties, are used to much lower wages and have few outgoings to pay for. (*) Source: www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs ... -work.html Whilst the BCC is crap at economics, it can conduct a poll adequately enough.

There is also the oft-quoted but still very prevalent issue of a lot of well educated young people coming to the UK with a debt to repay to families back home, whether that be a real hard money debt run up during education or a moral debt to support elderly relatives, in eastern european cultures its much more common for the young to support the elderly in their own family and "sending money home" is very common - hence the low cost multi-share accommodation being popular to cut down their overheads.

I was in an agency last week when a young Polish (I assumed) lad and his girlfriend turned up at the desk, they had arrived the previous day and were registering for work immediately, he spoke very good English, his girlfriend didn't, he explained that they didn't have transport at the moment but were lodging locally with his ex-girlfriend and that he hoped to buy a cheap car in the next few weeks - their willingness to do any sort of work was almost painful to watch and the good news is that she was offered a job "in the fields" where she'd be transported to wherever they needed her each day and he was offered a post starting the next day in a hi-tech local factory which he said he could get to, he was a degree qualified mechanical engineer and they got him on their books as quickly as possible.

So yes, jobs are available and they aren't always jobs that are advertised in job centres because part of the agencies role is to visit all sorts of businesses and sniff out ANY small opportunities, one day a week will do to get a foot in the door and total non-commitment from the employer is ideal for them to fill a post that they wouldn't even think about advertising at the job centre until it became a necessity.

Working with agencies has opened my eyes a lot, the workplace is a totally different world to that which I entered in 1974

Why does that matter? Are we not better off concentrating efforts on the say 2450000 ( a figure plucked out of thin air, it seemed to be the nature of this thread) that are desperate to work? The time to chase the workshy is when there are the jobs for them to do, something Blair?Brown should have done before importing cheap labour.



These are related?

Skills shortage happen when employers won't or don't train their own staff but seek to recruit for employers that do.
Eastern Europeans often return home after roughing it and finding the streets are not paved with gold or fill the transient, low skill and short term jobs that some think are beneath them or are trapped in a benefits quandary thanks to the ending of rapid reclaim.

Some reasonable knock downs I guess. What would your answers be?

Merrily paying benefits for eternity because it's too hard to get a job doesn't seem like much of a way forward.

So make it easier to get a job.
Provide proper, personal assistance to those who are unemployed rather than 7 minutes every 2 weeks.
Train those who need it in basics like using a computer.
Help provide funds to those who need it to buy a computer.
Provide help with childcare for those who need it.
Provide transport assistance for those who need it.
Provide much, much more assistance and encouragement to the unemployed to start a new business/idea/product.


Those things would help, but the biggest issue is the lack of jobs.

I know I keep making the point but the biggest issue is the lack of 40hr a week Mon-Fri jobs, which lets all be honest, is everyones impression of what they mean when they say "get a job".

As others have pointed out though, what might be needed is a change of attitude towards what the employers are looking for, a more flexible attitude to how and when you work, for the last five years the boot has been firmly on the feet of the employers hence the epidemic of non-committal work contracts, but maybe its how things have to be - after all we are all consumers and its our demands for cheap goods and foods almost 24 hours a day and our demands for retailers to open 7 days a week and stay open for longer, that have at least partly driven the need for a more flexible workforce, we are all to blame not just the employer.

My wife works in the hotel industry where the business is a true 24 hour 365 day a year business and the idea that she or ANY of her colleagues would ever do a 40 hour Mon-Fri routine is laughable and yet the turnover of staff across that industry is huge even though the quantity of weekly hours are generally available to anyone who wants them, maybe they just don't want them ?

Do you really think that that is what is happening?

What about the number of jobs available as opposed the number of people officially listed as seeking work (there are many people who are working part time, but who want more work. However, as long as they're doing a couple of hours a week or even on a zero-hours contract, they do not count on the unemployment figures)?

I got so concerned about British staff being sidelined in favour of bringing-in non-EU employees that I enquired, via my MP, whether it was legal.
It turns out that it not only was (and still is) perfectly legal it's pretty much encouraged.
Where a company has a presence in, say, India and the UK, it can perfectly legally obtain visas for the Indian employees to come to Britain, temporarily, to do the work.
They are not supposed to be allowed to recruit outside the EU specifically for a UK project but that rule is pretty much unenforceable.

The people thus imported may well be very nice hardworking people with the right skills and I have no beef with them personally, I'd do the same in their position ... but that is not the issue.

It used to be the norm (maybe still is?) that, for a non-EU national to get a visa, the UK employer had to affirm that they couldn't reasonably get anyone in the UK with the right skills and, after maybe a couple of years, they'd be told that they should have trained someone by now and the visa renewal would be refused.
[uThis rule does not apply[/u (or, if it does, is not being enforced) where the employer has a presence in both countries ... I think it ought to.

I thought that that was still the case: there was certainly discussion (at the least) a few years ago, at Parliamentary level, to that effect – or perhaps that was just possible caps being discussed. I remember jockeys coming in the category of skilled workers of whom there was a UK shortfall.



Not entirely unrelated to Ed M's recent policy proposals, then.



It seems partly to come back to the point that's been discussed here more than once of employers expecting that any new employee is fully trained before they start a job, and thus requires no investment in training by the employer – to the extent of the CBI (IIRC) complaining, a few years ago, about how school leavers were not trained in customer relations.

I don't personally recall employers in 'the olden days' expecting this – or expecting not to train a new employee themselves.

Globalisation and neo-liberalism at work again, it seems.

Course Title : How to be a Government Minister

Lesson 1 : How to claim a victory from defeat

Study text ... [urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24742499[/url

Case History : Your Government rushes through some hastily thought legislation which allows you to make the unemployed do free work for their benefits under threat of losing some or all of their benefits if they do not, one claimant takes you to the High Court and asks for a judgement on two issues...

1. You did not explain fully that you were not entitled in law to remove some or all of her benefits if she did not comply

2. You were using her as slave labour under Human Rights legislation

The court finds in favour of the claimant for point 1 but against the claimant for point 2.

You don't like this because the press give you a right slagging off, so you appeal to the Supreme Court so that both issues can be found in your favour.

Unfortunately the Supreme Court agrees with the High Court and the judgements stay as they were.

Your task today is to present this second slap in the face from the Supreme Court in a manner which makes it look as though you have won the appeal instead of lost it, at the public expense.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


For the answer to this question see the linked BBC News reports and read the final few paragraphs which contain statements from two Government Ministers and a Government Department who all claim a victory despite the real fact that they lost their appeal.



Next weeks lecture : How the Japanese won the war in the Pacific in 1945.

But surely they must cut Iain Duncan Sniff some slack in case he "believes" they are wrong?

Nice one Iain.

So let me get this straight, the High Court agrees with you earlier this year that your workfare program was not forced labour, so you put in an appeal to the Supreme Court so that they can also say that your workfare program was not forced labour ?

So Iain, in his wisdom, appealed a High Court judgment because he agreed with the High Court judgement but wanted the Supreme Court to also agree with him.

I happen to think that he is a fekkin idiot, unfortunately the way he behaves and in his press releases he also seems to think that we are all fekkin idiots too.

And Ed Balls says he was still right to ignore procedure and sack Sharon Shoesmith: it's a growing culture.

So the outcome of this ruling is so long as the scheme is explained properly then it is totally legal. Sounds reasonable to me.

Cait Reilly now works for a supermarket but apparently her work at Poundland didn't help her get the job.

It should have been explained properly in the first place, incompetence and a rushing through of rulings ensured that it was badly implemented, not the first time something similar has been declared illegal by the courts either.

But you've missed my point completely, the point being the incredible gall of the politicians to completely ignore the bad news element of the ruling (they lost their appeal) and instead waffle on about the bit that they won several months ago that wasn't even part of this appeal.

They treat us like idiots, and the big problem is that there are plenty like you willing to swallow all of it, thank them, and ask for more.

No, politicians would never do such a thing.

Maybe if it gets your blood pressure up so much you could always ignore such stories in future. No one forces you to read quotes from politicians.

Well yes, as it is with pretty much everything a government does, if the law requires it to do so. If the law says one thing and they don't do it, they lose.

The number of times governments of whatever hue have lost cases in the courts because they don't follow what the law says beggars belief. And you me and everyone on here is paying for IDS etc to challenge these decisions because they don't/won't listen to their advisers

It must be nice in your tinky-winky world where all politicians can be accepted without question and the Daily Mail always gets the story - keep your mouth open and keep swallowing.

Gobble gobble.

Sounds like you're suggesting that our little friend basically fellates the politicians/commentators he wants.

Perhaps that's what screws his brain and prevents him for ever actually making a constructive contribution to a thread?