Counting the kids

ukcarper

Pqdref


I think you have been asked before and haven't answered but what do you think should be done or do you think we should just carry with things as they are.

harrup

pqrdef wrote: »

What a lot of people need is a job. It's simply not the case that there are enough jobs out there for everybody to get one if they want one. We need to create jobs. And we need to create jobs that are matched to the limitations of the people who need the jobs. No use complaining that ex-cons and people with low IQs live on benefits if nobody will employ them. It beggars belief that we're closing Remploy.

And the other thing we need is a culture of respect. People won't go to work to be treated as scum. There are people on this board that I wouldn't work for, because of their obnoxious attitude to anybody they regard as inferior.

Interesting post and all good points.

However....may I give you a glimpse of reality from an (ex) employers perspective?

Half of the people - primarily very young people - showing up for a job are effectively unemployable. Why? Because they don't give a toffee whether they still have it tomorrow or not. They were raised in a culture where their needs, their wants came first and foremost. Everything had to be fun, fun, fun. If they failed in whatever task, or if they just couldn't be bothered, it was the teacher's fault or society's fault or ANYONES fault. Kids were raised as if they would stay carefree, jobfree children forever.

Small wonder, then, when faced with work drudgery as an adult - they can't handle it. They just can't. They are unreliable, lazy, disrespectful, disinterested and averse to taking directions. Regardless of HOW respectfully those are made. No, of course this doen't apply to all young people entering the workforce, but you would be astounded as to how many.

THAT'S reality. You couple this with the fact that a HUGE number of kids go to university these days - regardless of whether they are cut out for academic work in the future - and then you have someone who has got zero experience of anything....but thinks that due to their degree....most work and jobs are beneath them. Also reality.

Listen....I have yet to meet an employer who gave a monkey's whether someone was an ex-convict or whether their IQ was MENSA worthy or not. Employers are just looking for someone who is reliable & willing and able to do the job. That's it.

You mentioned the dire employment prospects for people with handicaps or learning difficulties, forcing them into longterm/permanent benefit dependency. Again, a valid poid.

But here is the flipside of this coin. Most, if not all, people with learning difficulties will take longer to carry out or to understand a given task. A LOT longer. In itself, often not an insurmountable problem. In the past, employers compensated for this lack of productivity by paying a lower rate. Until this was deemed as ruthlessly exploiting the needy & profiteering from the weaker members of society. But if you require 3 people to carry out 1 person's job, it simply isn't financially viable to pay ALL of them a normal rate. So that was largely the end of that. Whether this noble pay equality was thus ultimately of any help to people with LD is truly questionable.

You are absolutly right - people need jobs. But they also need to be employable. There HAS to be an strong incentice for UK entrepreneurs to employ a local workforce rather than to outsourcing it. And lazy, disinterested, unreliable people full of lofty airs & graces really aren't it.

PaulF81

harrup wrote: »

Whilst I concur with many of your sentiments....I am a bit puzzled that you seem to lay the blame primarily at women ( see your prior posts). Single mothers, specifically.

I have no vested interest since I don't have kids myself. But as a fellow woman I find that more than mildly offensive.

Why not hold the chaps who fathered said children more directly responsible? It's a rather ossified viewpoint: young women falls pregnant = SHE is the sole culprit and the drain on society. But what about the person who GOT her pregnant?

Perhaps, we as a society, we should focus more on educating young men about the ramifications of their actions. I don't mean soft, woolly talks about " moral responsibility" and some such. I mean concrete action such as ....I don't know, the certainty that their car, their laptops, their mobiles, whatever would be reposessed instantly. Now THAT is a language which would make a young guy hastily reach for a condom. "Societal responsibility".... meh, not so much.

The mother is the one who makes the call to keep the kid or not.

harrup

PaulF81 wrote: »

The mother is the one who makes the call to keep the kid or not.

Indeed.

Say.....you DO realise that there is a BIG emotional and moral difference between the decisions of wearing a condom and aborting a child?

Right? Just checking.

pqrdef

harrup wrote: »

Half of the people - primarily very young people - showing up for a job are effectively unemployable.

I know. You could pick a lot of them in their first week at school. But it's no good just telling them they need to be employable. They need to be made employable, and a couple of weeks stacking shelves "to get them used to the world of work" isn't going to do it.

Nor is the threat of starvation or prison. Many posters think that would make them mend their ways. It won't. They'll just end up starving or in prison.

harrup wrote: »

Until this was deemed as ruthlessly exploiting the needy & profiteering from the weaker members of society. But if you require 3 people to carry out 1 person's job, it simply isn't financially viable to pay ALL of them a normal rate.

Again, it's no use telling people they've got to go and get a job if they can't actually do the job.

We've got a complex morass of long-neglected social problems - one of which is a mass education system that will be unfit for purpose until it tears itself away from the grammar-school model.

Benefit savings will follow from tackling the social problems. But it doesn't work the other way. Cutting the benefits won't just make the social problems disappear.

Paradoxically the benefit system has made things worse by making things better - it's kept the lid on the situation and allowed us to ignore it. Perhaps the best we can hope for is that cutting benefits blows the lid off. They can't imprison too many more rioters, the prisons are full.

BigAunty

harrup wrote: »

Interesting post and all good points.

However....may I give you a glimpse of reality from an (ex) employers perspective?

Half of the people - primarily very young people - showing up for a job are effectively unemployable. Why? Because they don't give a toffee whether they still have it tomorrow or not. They were raised in a culture where their needs, their wants came first and foremost. Everything had to be fun, fun, fun. If they failed in whatever task, or if they just couldn't be bothered, it was the teacher's fault or society's fault or ANYONES fault. Kids were raised as if they would stay carefree, jobfree children forever.

Small wonder, then, when faced with work drudgery as an adult - they can't handle it. They just can't. They are unreliable, lazy, disrespectful, disinterested and averse to taking directions.

The Arnold Clark company would agree with your observations.

"More than four-fifths of school leavers applying for apprenticeships are “unemployable” and some college courses are so bad they amount to “state-sponsored babysitting”, one of Scotland’s largest companies has said.

The training arm of the Arnold Clark motoring group has told MSPs that 1,850 of the 2,280 youngsters who applied to be an apprentice with the company last year were judged to be “not employable at all.”

Many displayed “shock” at the length of their working day because they were used to spending a maximum of 18 hours per week in the classroom or even fewer if they attended college, the company said.


With Scotland in the grip of a youth unemployment crisis, the company said some college courses are so ineffective they amount to “state-sponsored babysitting” instead of targeted vocational training that would guarantee a job at the end.


Among the other flaws highlighted were applicants’ poor attitude and communication skills, a lack of understanding of the standards expected and a “culture of wholly unrealistic expectations”.


This was compounded by their “inability to make a decision based on anything other than ‘I want!’” and a “zero understanding” of the negative consequences of their actions. Most of the youngsters also had "no concept of citizenship". "


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9280740/Arnold-Clark-More-than-80-per-cent-of-apprentice-applicants-unemployable.html

ILW

pqrdef wrote: »

I know. You could pick a lot of them in their first week at school. But it's no good just telling them they need to be employable. They need to be made employable, and a couple of weeks stacking shelves "to get them used to the world of work" isn't going to do it.

.

Many you could tell before they were even born. The current system rewards "breeding for profit" and until that is tackled things are not going to improve.

ILW

harrup wrote: »

Indeed.

Say.....you DO realise that there is a BIG emotional and moral difference between the decisions of wearing a condom and aborting a child?

Right? Just checking.

Not if you are a Catholic.
Abortion counts as a single sin, every time you use a condom it is a repeat offence.