The side-effect of public cuts...

carolt

It does seem unfair, but less so if you remember it's an insurance scheme NOT a savings scheme.

With the former it's there only in case of need - with the latter, you're entitled to a certain amount back.

The chap who's spent all his money on the flash car, say, won't be able to sell it and get back what he paid for it. So he does need the money more than you - even though it was his stupid choice.

dopester

michaels wrote: »

Not unhappy just still don't see why it is fair that I get no benefits if I save my spare income but lots if I had spent it all.

We might be seeing the beginning of an overhaul for benefits.

More so than ever, I wouldn't like to be in the position where I'm reliant upon benefits, having blown away my own personal savings on boom time living.

Against a background of changes in the benefit system to come, I'm ever more grateful to have my savings. Keep MSE for the moment, try and keep your savings intact as much as possible, and hopefully see the value of your money rise as reforms come in.

That is the win, for me at least, of personal responsibility for insuring yourself through building up savings. It's in the transition
stage.

(Reuters) - The government is planning "root and branch" reform of a welfare system that is ineffective and encourages people to stay out of work, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE64Q24O20100527
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704032704575268751255256546.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

Spartacus_Mills

Turnbull2000 wrote: »

To be honest, the whole industry (architecture) has seemingly been dependant on state spending for at least several years now. I personally haven't seen a private project through since 2005. It's like they've been edged out by public projects. With BSF schools now on hold, I expect another round of redundancies at my own place this year or next.

Even if there is an eventual pick up in private projects, I can see our staffing requirements permanently dropping by a third, as more automated design software (Autodesk Revit) removes the need for CAD technicians.

But those jobs will be lost due to technological advances not any fault of the government.

It is like many of the manufacturing jobs we lost in the eighties. Many jobs were lost due to automation of processes and assembly lines. I am not saying the batty old witch was not to blame for some of the decline in manufacturing but this is a process that has been going on for years and manufacturing did recover towards the end of the eighties.

Backbiter

(Reuters) - The government is planning "root and branch" reform of a welfare system that is ineffective and encourages people to stay out of work, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said.

This is long overdue and would be a good thing. The real problem is that jobs will disappear thick and fast under this Government, so there will be hundreds of thousands more (millions if the last Tory government is anything to go by) people out of work. How you get people off benefits when its your policies that will put so many of them on benefits is anyone's guess.

lvader

Backbiter wrote: »

This is long overdue and would be a good thing. The real problem is that jobs will disappear thick and fast under this Government, so there will be hundreds of thousands more (millions if the last Tory government is anything to go by) people out of work. How you get people off benefits when its your policies that will put so many of them on benefits is anyone's guess.

When it's private sector jobs that go people simply have to deal with it, when public sector jobs go it's the end of the world as we know it!

I lost my job in 2008, had to work part time for a year and a half then take my original job back at 25% less wages. To this day I never been paid a penny in benefits.

It's about time the tax money I have contined to pay even when my income became less than what some people earn on benefits got used for something more worthwhile than simply spending money for the sake of it.

A._Badger

Backbiter wrote: »

This is long overdue and would be a good thing. The real problem is that jobs will disappear thick and fast under this Government, so there will be hundreds of thousands more (millions if the last Tory government is anything to go by) people out of work. How you get people off benefits when its your policies that will put so many of them on benefits is anyone's guess.

Well, you make a start by halting the wealth-draining growth of government regulation and the general drag effect of excessive state sector non-jobs. As businesses grow they employ more people in the wealth creating sector.

Though how many lesbian outreach workers and street football coordinators are ready for life in a biscuit factory remains to be seen.

Turnbull2000

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

But those jobs will be lost due to technological advances not any fault of the government.

Where did I blame the government for these losses? I didn't.

Anyway, it's not just the CAD guys who are under threat. Technical and skilled staff are facing stiff competition too. All but the best visualisation artists face a bleak future as design packages increasingly offers automated tools to help portray designs. Rather than rely on a specialist, architects can now visualise their own work.

Then there's competition from abroad. My ex-firm (the one with 60 jobs to go) was outsourcing technical design to firms in India and Vietnam back in 2006. Even though the quality of work was poor and the project re-drawn in-house at great expense, it's only a matter of time until Indian and Vietnamese graduates catch up with their UK counterparts - with a 60% saving on salary and no need for pension or benefits. As soon as a few firm starts doing this successfully, all others will have to follow will have to follow in order to remain competitive on bid prices.

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

It is like many of the manufacturing jobs we lost in the eighties. Many jobs were lost due to automation of processes and assembly lines. I am not saying the batty old witch was not to blame for some of the decline in manufacturing but this is a process that has been going on for years and manufacturing did recover towards the end of the eighties.

Manufacturing grew quite strongly from 1982 onwards. I'm not sure if actual employee numbers are accounted for though. I gather these fell?

Sapphire

marklv wrote: »

No, because a job is a job. It keeps a person off the streets, off the dole queue and doing something. You might question the value of such jobs, but they are still jobs.

Trouble is, they are often excessively highly paid jobs, payable at the taxpayer's expense. I have a cousin who is a management consultant working for various government departments. She gets paid an absolute fortune – and in fact on a recent project colleagues who were also management consultants were flown in to their work area from Scotland each week. First-class rail travel is of course the norm for these people.

This is totally wrong – and managers in the public sector should be competent enough to do without management consultants. If they are not, they are the wrong people for the jobs they are doing.

Turnbull2000

Sapphire wrote: »

Trouble is, they are often excessively highly paid jobs, payable at the taxpayer's expense.

Like these ones..

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_XQBlCxLE0vw/TBqteK4cATI/AAAAAAAABz0/n8k9ecil5C4/s1600/EMACO.jpg

There's two 'non jobs' in that article. A Google search for one of these titles gave the link below. On a full time basis, that's 46K salary + pension.

http://www.jobsgopublic.com/jobs/ethnic-minority-achievement-co-ordinator-emaco-n-a/from/1ki524rnbh07fw/61/of/1088/opening_at/desc?utm_source=Indeed&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=Indeed

dopester

Turnbull2000 wrote: »

Then there's competition from abroad. My ex-firm (the one with 60 jobs to go) was outsourcing technical design to firms in India and Vietnam back in 2006.

It isn't really my field but maybe there is also a surplus of people who've become architects, who become surplus to requirements after crazy wild booms eventually get busted?

You can't really expect the Government to authorise massive projects which don't bring in much of a real economic return to keep architects and other people in jobs. There are some instances where such investment spending is justifiable but not here. It's small schools now in existing buildings. Maybe a clever out-of-work architect can begin freelancing towards those needs, of adapting different buildings into small schools.

FT . Published: June 16 2010
(second link down)
http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&q=architects%20aberdeen&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=nws:1&source=og&sa=N&tab=wn&fp=52043fa1c08cef0f
Snippet (because it still requires registration despite a DIGG link)

The pain has been widely spread, however, as shown by the FT's analysis of Office for National Statistics data from the claimant count, which has nearly doubled from 790,000 to 1.52m since the recession began in April 2008.

Sales and retail assistants have seen the largest increase in numbers claiming the dole over that period, up 110,000 or 103 per cent, followed by goods handling and storage workers (49,000). In terms of percentage increases, architects top the table with an increase of 1,100 or 720 per cent.

Case study
Architect redraws career

Architecture graduate Ciaran Bodenham was going to be the next Lord Rogers, writes Andrew Bounds . That was before the recession.

Now he has given up his hopes of being an architect and is back at home working as a freelance photographer while running a website about his other passion, Formula One racing. Mr Bodenham, 23, says most of his fellow architecture graduates are in the same position: dumped by firms desperate to cut costs. "I chose architecture because of Richard Rogers. I liked the Gherkin but especially Wembley and wanted to create buildings like those," he says as he sits outside the post office his parents run in Honley, a West Yorkshire village.

After three years at Manchester University he got his first degree and the necessary position working in one of the city's booming architecture practices. That was June 2008, just before the recession hit. Within five months he was laid off after a big client slashed its fees and the firm cancelled the contract.

Though he was found work in another office, designing schools and hospitals - or at least their toilet blocks - he handed in his notice in January, disillusioned with the profession.

"We were rushing to get the plans finished so the Treasury could sign them off before the election. These projects have been lifelines. The new government is going to cut them and there will be a lot more job losses," he says.