Guardian Prize Crossword 29,577 Saturday...
Crosswords1 min ago
Are We A Lazy Nation?
57 Answers
In the UK we have long term unemployed yet certain factions complain foreigners are coming in and taking all the jobs -how can that be? If foreign workers are coming into the country and getting jobs why can't UK citizens get those jobs? why can't the long term unemployed be made to pick fruit and veg/clean public places/ work in airports and hotels? Is it Laziness? The jobs are there for the taking, there is no excuse for a healthy adult to be long-term unemployed.
Answers
I think we look at this the wrong way. I don't think we're lazy, I think we're unmotivated. I get working tax credits because I get paid less than is deemed enough to live on, yet I work for 40 hours a week and I work hard. My boss is stinking rich while you (and I) pay in taxes to cover my living standards shortfall while my boss buys himself a new car, again. This is...
23:51 Tue 13th Aug 2013
-- answer removed --
You make a point but it isn't as clear cut as you suggest Morrigan.
Economies are not identical the world over. Some places are high wage high cost whilst others low wage low cost. If you come from a country that is low wage to one that is high wage, even pittance wages seem brilliant to you and you are eager to get and keep the job. Whereas the local population may well feel they are being exploited. By undercutting what is considered locally to be a fair return for the labour the foreign worker can easily take the jobs, if labour mobility has been made easy for the benefit of big business.
Also, of course, if you come from an area where one is desperate to take anything to survive, for you have so little, then for sure you will be used to working far harder than other areas of the globe think reasonable. I'm unsure one can mock one group as being lazy rather than consider the other group as being willing to work well beyond what should be expectation. Surely we ought not all be expected to be on the breadline for the companies to have their pick from ?
One need not force folk to take jobs they consider under-rewarded. That would be interfering with the market. And indeed allowing easy of labour mobility is already distorting the local market since, as mentioned above, not all areas of the globe are identical with identical experiences.
Folk, for sure, ought not to make excuses to live off the rest of society, but at the same time the balance should be made without forcing onto someone something they can reasonably claim is oppression of the working (or would like to work) classes. We have 2 issues, we ought not make one worse trying to sort the other.
Economies are not identical the world over. Some places are high wage high cost whilst others low wage low cost. If you come from a country that is low wage to one that is high wage, even pittance wages seem brilliant to you and you are eager to get and keep the job. Whereas the local population may well feel they are being exploited. By undercutting what is considered locally to be a fair return for the labour the foreign worker can easily take the jobs, if labour mobility has been made easy for the benefit of big business.
Also, of course, if you come from an area where one is desperate to take anything to survive, for you have so little, then for sure you will be used to working far harder than other areas of the globe think reasonable. I'm unsure one can mock one group as being lazy rather than consider the other group as being willing to work well beyond what should be expectation. Surely we ought not all be expected to be on the breadline for the companies to have their pick from ?
One need not force folk to take jobs they consider under-rewarded. That would be interfering with the market. And indeed allowing easy of labour mobility is already distorting the local market since, as mentioned above, not all areas of the globe are identical with identical experiences.
Folk, for sure, ought not to make excuses to live off the rest of society, but at the same time the balance should be made without forcing onto someone something they can reasonably claim is oppression of the working (or would like to work) classes. We have 2 issues, we ought not make one worse trying to sort the other.
Good points there Old_Geezer, thank you for your input. If a foreign person comes to work here legally, then they will get the same (minimum) wage as a UK citizen would doing the same job. Obviously illegal immigrants won't and that is a separate issue. My post was prompted by a discussion with a member of my family that is a head housekeeper at a large well-known hotel. They struggle to get cleaning staff and when they do its invariably foreign workers that apply. Nothing wrong with this as they are found to work extremely hard and always willing to do more hours, although sometimes a phrasebook is required to communicate effectively. The UK applicants, usually 'forced' by the jobcentre to apply, if taken on are lazy, take days off without giving notice and complain if asked to do the extra hour or two. My OH has problems getting labourers to do day work at £8 an hour sometimes they turn up and are texting people all day. I appreciate what you are saying but my opinion is that the UK are becoming workshy because the Benefit System is too generous.
The problem is that our benefits are too generous, it makes it pointless working. Imagine there was no immigrant workers at all. Then those needing workers would have to attract the indigenous population. As they can live for nothing on benefits, it follows that in order to obtain workers, employers would have to offer better wages and the government would have to be less generous with benefites. QED today's situation.
Depends where you live. Fruit picking if you live in a city does not seem viable. I live in a town miles from any airport. No large hotels as found in or on the outskirts of a city.Working in airports and hotels may be a problem if you live in the country (which may be given over to dairy or sheep farming).
Clean public places? Oh! The council spend much of their time making cut-backs in this sector.
Clean public places? Oh! The council spend much of their time making cut-backs in this sector.
There are a number of causes of this ridiculous state of affairs.
The EU has a number of proud achievements which it will defend regardless of the cost or misery inflicted on the hapless “citizens“ of the bloc. First, of course, is the remarkably successful single currency. But following up closely behind is the free movement of labour. Quite why this should be so important is difficult for some of us to understand. However, the EU’s overall aim is to create a single homogenous blob of humanity all equally impoverished (bar, of course, those employed to administer the accompanying bureaucracy). To achieve this it needs a mechanism for shifting capital from the richer nations to the poorer. How better to achieve this than to allow people to sell their labour in the richer economies (usually by undercutting the local population) and sending their earnings back home. Whilst here those selling their labour (for five to ten times the rate they might receive at home) have considerably lower overheads than those already here (no families to provide for in high cost accommodation and high relative prices) and can live very cheaply. The huge influx of Eastern Europeans since 2004 is testament to this. The UK was the only nation which allowed an unfettered influx of Eastern Europeans immediately after the EU expanded because, according to Chris Bryant, shadow immigration minister, nobody could have foreseen the numbers who would come here. Nobody in the Labour government, that is. Everybody else had a very good idea, said so, and were howled down. So we have millions of people seeking low paid low skilled work allowed into a country where two million or so were unemployed.
Now add in a benefits system which pays people with families around twice the minimum wage to stay at home. People who may have been inclined to work (if they had not been undercut by those mentioned above) see no point. They can get twice as much and still watch the racing on their plasma TV.
Now add to that a bit of “I’m not doing that sort of work” (waiting on tables, cleaning bedrooms and toilets, picking cabbages) from people who have been promised a lifetime of fulfilling, highly paid employment courtesy of their ten A Levels and their degree in creative forensic psychology from Lewisham University.
There’s a lot more I could add, but basically the country does not have properly paid employment for all the people that are here. It is quite happy to pay those for whom there is no work to do nothing whilst still allowing “free movement of labour” from 26 other nations.
The EU has a number of proud achievements which it will defend regardless of the cost or misery inflicted on the hapless “citizens“ of the bloc. First, of course, is the remarkably successful single currency. But following up closely behind is the free movement of labour. Quite why this should be so important is difficult for some of us to understand. However, the EU’s overall aim is to create a single homogenous blob of humanity all equally impoverished (bar, of course, those employed to administer the accompanying bureaucracy). To achieve this it needs a mechanism for shifting capital from the richer nations to the poorer. How better to achieve this than to allow people to sell their labour in the richer economies (usually by undercutting the local population) and sending their earnings back home. Whilst here those selling their labour (for five to ten times the rate they might receive at home) have considerably lower overheads than those already here (no families to provide for in high cost accommodation and high relative prices) and can live very cheaply. The huge influx of Eastern Europeans since 2004 is testament to this. The UK was the only nation which allowed an unfettered influx of Eastern Europeans immediately after the EU expanded because, according to Chris Bryant, shadow immigration minister, nobody could have foreseen the numbers who would come here. Nobody in the Labour government, that is. Everybody else had a very good idea, said so, and were howled down. So we have millions of people seeking low paid low skilled work allowed into a country where two million or so were unemployed.
Now add in a benefits system which pays people with families around twice the minimum wage to stay at home. People who may have been inclined to work (if they had not been undercut by those mentioned above) see no point. They can get twice as much and still watch the racing on their plasma TV.
Now add to that a bit of “I’m not doing that sort of work” (waiting on tables, cleaning bedrooms and toilets, picking cabbages) from people who have been promised a lifetime of fulfilling, highly paid employment courtesy of their ten A Levels and their degree in creative forensic psychology from Lewisham University.
There’s a lot more I could add, but basically the country does not have properly paid employment for all the people that are here. It is quite happy to pay those for whom there is no work to do nothing whilst still allowing “free movement of labour” from 26 other nations.
@New Judge, (and indirectly in reply to themorrigan)
Yep and there was an article I saw the other day, juxtaposing the crisis of the current young generation's worsening problems getting into work with the record 50% (!!!) rate of students achieving degree level.
Arguably, we should be importing under-educated, unskilled labour from parts of the world where the education system is only just getting up off its knees to do all the jobs requiring physical fitness. *
Where we appear to be failing is in putting all our graduates into the kind of jobs they studied for - engineering, science, technology and that sort of thing. There's not enough investment in it and there's no incentive for the mega-rich to invest because there are no tax loopholes to drive that kind of thing. We give them tax breaks and they just put the extra cash 'on ice'.
* I knew someone who had worked in the care industry for a time. She'd had to give up the job while barely in her mid 20s and was on the gobstopper-sized ibuprofen tablets, possibly for life, having wrecked her lower back lifting people out of baths all day. Farm labour is probably an easy ride, by comparison.
The traditional method of getting arduous, difficult or monotonous jobs filled was to offer attractive salary and a non-contributory pension scheme. (And look what happened to public opinion about those!)
What are the odds of that ever happening in the care industry given that it's expensive even though the wages are %&^te?
Yep and there was an article I saw the other day, juxtaposing the crisis of the current young generation's worsening problems getting into work with the record 50% (!!!) rate of students achieving degree level.
Arguably, we should be importing under-educated, unskilled labour from parts of the world where the education system is only just getting up off its knees to do all the jobs requiring physical fitness. *
Where we appear to be failing is in putting all our graduates into the kind of jobs they studied for - engineering, science, technology and that sort of thing. There's not enough investment in it and there's no incentive for the mega-rich to invest because there are no tax loopholes to drive that kind of thing. We give them tax breaks and they just put the extra cash 'on ice'.
* I knew someone who had worked in the care industry for a time. She'd had to give up the job while barely in her mid 20s and was on the gobstopper-sized ibuprofen tablets, possibly for life, having wrecked her lower back lifting people out of baths all day. Farm labour is probably an easy ride, by comparison.
The traditional method of getting arduous, difficult or monotonous jobs filled was to offer attractive salary and a non-contributory pension scheme. (And look what happened to public opinion about those!)
What are the odds of that ever happening in the care industry given that it's expensive even though the wages are %&^te?
I watched that boxy .It was very interesting .I really felt for that poor old chap who they shoved in a home .
I know they were probably volunteers to do the programme but it did give you an insight into how hard things were before the advent of the welfare state .
I was so pleased for the young chap who got a job . He was so pleased ..I was on the fence with other woman though .She really didn't do much too ingratiate herself with the powers that be by her attitude .She could easily have done a light sitting down job .
I know they were probably volunteers to do the programme but it did give you an insight into how hard things were before the advent of the welfare state .
I was so pleased for the young chap who got a job . He was so pleased ..I was on the fence with other woman though .She really didn't do much too ingratiate herself with the powers that be by her attitude .She could easily have done a light sitting down job .
Yes but it was far too stereotyped and dumbed down .
It's true though that on the whole they have a better work ethic .
They were living in a very affluent area of Germany which made it appear to anyone who has never been there that's it's like that all over Germany .It isn't .
And of course they had to mention the war .Mr S thought it was laughable .
And he's a fully paid up member of the Fatherland .
It's true though that on the whole they have a better work ethic .
They were living in a very affluent area of Germany which made it appear to anyone who has never been there that's it's like that all over Germany .It isn't .
And of course they had to mention the war .Mr S thought it was laughable .
And he's a fully paid up member of the Fatherland .
I think we look at this the wrong way.
I don't think we're lazy, I think we're unmotivated.
I get working tax credits because I get paid less than is deemed enough to live on, yet I work for 40 hours a week and I work hard.
My boss is stinking rich while you (and I) pay in taxes to cover my living standards shortfall while my boss buys himself a new car, again.
This is unjust and the public are jaded and dare I say it, fed up with the whole sorry state of affairs. I know I am.
My skills are worth more in experience now and they are good skills, but they command half the wage they would have done 10 years ago while the cost of living becomes more ridiculous.
I got made redundant in 2009. That put me back 15 years.
I don't think we're lazy, I think we're unmotivated.
I get working tax credits because I get paid less than is deemed enough to live on, yet I work for 40 hours a week and I work hard.
My boss is stinking rich while you (and I) pay in taxes to cover my living standards shortfall while my boss buys himself a new car, again.
This is unjust and the public are jaded and dare I say it, fed up with the whole sorry state of affairs. I know I am.
My skills are worth more in experience now and they are good skills, but they command half the wage they would have done 10 years ago while the cost of living becomes more ridiculous.
I got made redundant in 2009. That put me back 15 years.
Well said Mojo. My wages are half of what they were 15yrs ago. When I mentioned the ever widening gap between rich and poor, on another thread, I was upbraided for the 'politics of envy'. Also, apparently, this country needs more billionaires and lower expectations from the 'untermensch'.
These advocates of lower wages should move to Bangladesh where they'll find plenty of hard work paying 10p an hour.
But then, I rather suspect, they were advocating for others and not for themselves.
These advocates of lower wages should move to Bangladesh where they'll find plenty of hard work paying 10p an hour.
But then, I rather suspect, they were advocating for others and not for themselves.
-- answer removed --
Latest Posts
Quizzes & Puzzles1 min ago
Crosswords1 min ago
ChatterBank3 mins ago
Confirmation Of A's And I's Please
Crosswords4 mins ago
Quizzes & Puzzles7 mins ago
