With a massive labour shortage in the country at the moment

So they're better off on benefits then? I still don't understand why people in this thread are defending people CHOOSING to claim benefits instead of work when they are fit to do so. And being a carer isn't really being on benefits as it's essentially (poorly) paid work. I'm talking about such as the person who when invited to an interview replied with '**** off'.

Also yes I do regularly visit a family member to help look after them, it's about a 20/25 mile round trip. I have quite a few people who I buy for at Christmas, I have savings to pay for any maintenance issues and have always followed the rule of making sure I have 6 months mortgage payments in the bank just in case I get made redundant again (as I have been before). As I said, minimum wage leaves me with hundreds of pounds a month left over for these things.

Also as I've already explained my issue isn't with people on benefits for genuine reasons, it's for those who are just lazy scroungers. My claim that NMW is enough to live on doesn't mean it's enough for every single person but for many many people it is and people constantly telling kids that they'll never be able to afford a house and telling people that NMW won't be enough to live on only encourages people to a. Not be sensible with their money (because why bother? They'll never afford a house anyway so might as well have fun with it) and b. Encourages benefits cheats because why bother to work when NMW isn't enough to live on?

NMW is enough for many many people to live on especially round here and whilst it's good to encourage people to strive for better it's also important to remind people that the low paid jobs are worthwhile and are much better lifestyle than sitting on your arse on job seekers.

Was discussing this thread at work today and 4 of us said that NMW is enough for us to live comfortable lives, wouldn't mind more obviously but it's enough. 2 of us are single, ones a single dad, one is in a relationship and has 2 children, 1 is married with no kids. One said it's not enough to live on at all, he's massively in debt. He's also a drug addict who smokes 20 a day, drinks himself to death and buys packs on FIFA every night. I can't work out why he's struggling to pay his rent personally.

 

So where are your "lazy scroungers"? Do they exist, except in the minds of Daily Mail readers?

Evidence Sir, evidence!

 

Would agree with a lot of this. Minimum wage is liveable if you are on a safe, guaranteed 40 hour week. £356 a week take-home minus something like £100-150 on rent and bills is very doable. Obviously everyones circumstances are different, but it is a much higher amount than the dole. The issues come in with zero hour contracts and work often not being guaranteed which means fluctuating income from week to week and no chance to save.

Personally I've ran the gambit, worked minimum wage jobs, been on jobseekers for over a year and now I'm luckily near the top of my industry in London. But managed to live in London for a year on £150 a week after rent and bills, so it's definitely doable in Barnsley!

 

Who has done that? I honestly haven’t seen anyone defending people who purposefully abuse the benefits system. People have said it’s not as widespread as people make out but no one has applauded those that do it. Doesn’t it go without saying that people doing that are bad? What’s the point in a thread about something so obvious? It doesn’t tell anyone anything they don’t know and invites hatred on those who are not abusing it.

I never said they were better off on benefits. You asked why there are 2 million people on benefits when there are labour shortages and you were given some reasons why. You then asked why some people choose benefits over NMW and I gave a reason why (I didn’t condone it, just answered the question). You then said NMW is plenty for people to live on and I explained why that isn’t the case for a lot of people. My comment had nothing to do with benefits, it was just pointing out that the NMW is crap for anyone whose life isn’t a mix of perfect conditions. You’ve been annoyed at people saying lockdown wasn’t as bad for them and being alright Jack and yet you’re going on about how NMW isn’t bad for you with no trace of irony.

As for people turning down jobs wherever you work. Maybe they just really don’t want to work there? That doesn’t mean they don’t get a job somewhere else immediately after. You’ve mentioned before about people turning it down quite emphatically, and the fact you’re interviewing people with rubbish CVs implies you’re not swimming with better candidates who want to work there. You’ve been there years and appear to be involved in hiring and yet they’re still only giving you NMW. Maybe it’s not just the people applying at fault but the company you work for.

 

The market economy, innit?

 

Off topic I know... but the insanity and obvious pitfalls of privatising utilities has finally been exposed.
The much vaunted consumer benefit of 'choice for the consumer' keeping prices down was always 'smoke and mirrors' aince these 'suppliers' basically get their supply from the same limited sources (most of which are owned by foreign companies)
Furthermore, two main issues were always going to be a stumbling block...
1 A cap on consumer prices when the wholesale prices are not capped leaving companies exposed to losses and bankruptcy (which has happened now)
2 National security where foreign interests could use energy supplies as a weapon in an economic 'war'.

As ever, the idea of part privatisation is, on the face of it, attractive to Governments enabling investment in infrastructure to be financed and allowing over the long term fot those insvestors to make a reasonable return. However, as we have seen time and again, Governments and the Civil Service, are not the people to negotiate complex deals with hardened business professionals. You only have to look at MoD procurement, NHS purchasing, and the British Rail privatisation fiasco to see that often the promised investment never happens, the franchisees either fleece the taxpayer or fail because the terms that were agreed resulted in the projected returns falling far short of what was needed to make them viable. Rather than selling the utilities off to the highest bidder, whilst it is true that Governments are not there to run businesses, it is also true that Quangos are often seen as ineffective 'moneypits'.

IMO utilities should stay in public ownership but run by small organisations with professionals from the particular industries. Better still, any Government ministerial appointments should be, like one or two countries, people with specific experience and skillsets in the department they will be running. It always amazes me how the 'musical chairs' of cabinet reshuffles like we have just had, assumes that, for example, an Education minister could be appointed who was formerly a Transport minister and yet, is expected within days, to be making critical decisions affecting the live of millions of children and parents. Compound that with the fact you need absolutely NO qualifications whatsoever to run as an MP and ultimately could end up on the front benches (sometimes because of who, rather than what, you know). This applies to both main parties... Cons the Old boy network made up of Etonians or Oxbridge e.g. Michael Gove who actually stated "all schools should be above average in the Leagues tables"?!! and on the Labour side Angela Rayner who left school with no Qualifications and only got where she has through being an active Trade Unionist and rising through the ranks. In fairness, she probably has more common sense in her little finger than half the current cabinet cabinet combined although as a staunch supporter of Corbyn I suspect her 'card would be marked' by most of the voting public.

 

I’d agree with this, I’ve been involved in recruitment for my own businesses and when employed and have to say during those processes it was rare to have people who came with no intention of working.
Both examples we took people with no experience and trained them and more often that not it would be people from the JC.
I mentioned on another thread taking people on from a ‘club’ which was basically people who had been unemployed for over 2 years and even in that experience only had one person who openly admitted they didn’t want the job.

Also interesting article here about a CEO who took a pay cut when he found out one of his employees had taken a second job at McDonald’s and introduced a much higher minimum wage and the effects that has had on his business and the employees.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-51332811

 

And aren't we back to the original point that if they don't want to work there but are applying (with the same word for word cover letter) then doesn't it suggest they are benefits cheats who are simply applying to meet the quota of jobs they have to apply for to satisfy their benefits criteria?

As for the rest. It's kind of hard to pay good wages in an industry that was already struggling and has been decimated by covid restrictions that were targeted at said industry. The company actually looks after employees in other ways

 

No you are not Dom Raab, Liz Truss, Priti Patel, Chris Skidmore and Kwasi Kwarteng have said on record that British workers are the worst idlers in the world due to people being unemployed.
(what a lovely group of caring individuals)

 

Re

Re privatised utilies. I can put my hand on heart and say. The one I work for is far more inefficient than it was under public ownership. Millions are wasted on preferred partners and suppliers. Less work gets done at the front end. Due to red tape. Under public ownership we repaired things when they broke. Now it leads to poor prioratisation and spanners in the works. We were self managed at one time. Now we have to jump through more hoops to get things done. The workforce are exasperated.
Most of the utilities are now owned by foreign companies. (Mainly European.) Lack of investment from the early stages of privatisation ruined our industry. Now they are throwing money at it due to outdated assets. And the threat of huge fines. Too little too late in some cases.
( even divi's not been issued in the last couple of financial yrs.)

 

There aren't 2 million people claiming unemployment benefits. According to the latest figures, there are 5.88 million people claiming Universal Credit at the moment, of which 2.3 million are employed and 3.5 million are not in employment (August 2021). Of those, the vast majority are in the 25-49 age group (3.7m, with 2.1m not in employment). The majority (3.15m) of claimants are women, suggesting many are supporting children or working part-time.

The overall number has increased by 300,000 since June 2020, but the biggest jump is in the employed claiming UC.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/universal-credit-statistics-29-april-2013-to-12-august-2021

 

On a personal note, I'm being approached almost daily by recruiters looking for new staff and wages being offered have increased by about 20-30% over the last couple of years. This suggests that there is a big supply/demand issue (not enough experienced/qualified people), but it isn't a field you could just walk in - you'd need 5-10+ years of related experience before you could get a job.

If I take one of these positions - and who wouldn't be tempted by that kind of offer? - that will open a vacancy at my current employer, who will also be looking for someone from the same, small market with 5-10 years of experience. Larger employers might be able to train up lower-skilled/experienced people, but smaller companies don't have the staff numbers to do that.

Its the same in other markets. There is a demand for HGV drivers, and wages are soaring so people are leaving existing roles for the cash (fair enough). This increases demand for bus drivers, bin lorry drivers, delivery drivers, etc, so they have to increase wages to compete. And you get people leaving other fields to take up those jobs. This increases costs to companies who then pass it onto the consumer - us. This leaves you with a vicious cycle of wage-based inflation, so you might earn more money, but everything costs you more until (if inflation is not carefully managed) you are actually *worse* off than you were before.

How many people would be homeless if the interest rate on their mortgages increased significantly?

 

I think interest rates may need to rise a bit in order to allow the ridiculous rise in property prices.

 

Yes, not as marked as other places maybe but prices up and houses selling quickly

 

Not necessarily, no. If they are told they have to apply for that exact job, or they will be sanctioned, then of course they are going to apply for it whilst looking for other more suitable work because you’d be stupid not to. That doesn’t mean that they don’t have every intention of taking one of the other jobs they have applied for and maybe already have an interview lined up for. There aren’t only two options: work at your place or intend to be on benefits forever.

 

Yes the housing market is mental around here.

 

Im just selling my house that I bought in Wakey for £105k at the end of 2016 for £136k. Not done anything to it and could've probably held out for a bit more than that. Reasonable increase.

 

One downside I did not mention in my OP, but a major one of privatising or part privatising utilities is that there are additional costs to be considered on the books especially when foreign ownership exist.
One is that shareholders and businesses want a return on their investment, outgoings that if any surpluses existed whilst in State ownership would be ploughed back.
Foreign based companies will often have higher paid (and therefore higher taxpaying executives, management and employees based at HOs abroad), again money leaving the UK which would otherwise be kept in the domestic arena. This often leads to redundancies or relocation abroad of a proportion of the existing workforce adding to costs in severance pay, and benefits for those (often long term) employees who suddenly find themselves out of work. Supply chains are also often disrupted as the new 'owners', as you say, switch to their 'preferred'!! suppliers.
Part franchising outsourcing adds whole layers of bureaucracy and therefore increases costs often to a point where the whole point of saving through efficiency and passing the cost of investing in new infrastructure is lost.

And don't even get me started on the lunacy that is PFIs, or at least how they were conceived and implemented by successive Govts leaving The Private sector making money whilst the taxpayer bears the all risks and ends up paying the costs for decades.