Unemployment down 57,000

Generali

quantic wrote: »

Shame they don't give us figures like, unemployment is down 72k, of that 42k went into employment and 30k became classified as economically inactive.

They do if you also follow my link on economic inactivity.

rabbit_burrow

Conrad wrote: »

All incredibly dry and naïve, what I would expect from these organisations.

Do you not meet many builders, cabbies and tillers that found themselves up against new competition from about 2004?

I agree with you Conrad, but I also think that they wouldn't have the competition if they weren't so ridiculously priced.

From my own experience, I had a few English brickies come to quote me to rebuild my front wall about 4 years ago, I also had one Romanian bricky for a quote.

I already had the bricks (from when it fell down, plus I had bought some replacements), I had the mortar, and I had the wall toppers (I even had trowels & a spirit level in my cupboard)

All they had to do was the actual labour of building the wall, 3 hours work max. It isn't a massive wall, it is 9 bricks high and about 5 metres long.

The 3 English brickies' quotes ranged from £250 to £400.
The Romanian's was £150.

Now, I'm sorry, but anything from £83-£133 per HOUR?

Suffice it to say, I went with the Romanian's quote. And my wall is lovely.


Rather than moan about competition, maybe the UK tradesmen should sort their pricing out?

It doesn't appear that they want to though. I was quoted (a few weeks ago) £1000 to fix my flatroof (take off old felt, replace the ply boards & put on new underlay & felt). The flat roof isn't huge, it's 2.7x5m

grizzly1911

rabbit_burrow wrote: »

Rather than moan about competition, maybe the UK tradesmen should sort their pricing out?

I guess the counter to that could be things like, insurance, taxation, national insurance, provison of transport, licenses for hazardous work and chemicals, proper waste removal etc.

I do appreciate the point you are making.

grizzly1911

quantic wrote: »

Ok, hypercritically lets do an experiment:

Of the 9,040,000 Economically Inactive, lets look at discouraged workers (1%), and other (9%)... so that gives you 904,000 in addition to the 2,510,000 in the unemployed category.

That gives a total of 3,414,000. This doesn't even take into account that some of the Long Term sick have likely slipped through the cracks and are actually able to work.

A good chunk of the "students" will have actually only gone back to study because they have struggled to find work for so long so should really be considered unemployed also.

I think your probably talking (at a crude guess) of having a more realistic unemployment figure of around 3.5-4m.

You missed out the fact that some of the "early retired", 15% of total inactive, may also want or need to work.

Generali

grizzly1911 wrote: »

You missed out the fact that some of the "early retired", 15% of total inactive, may also want or need to work.

True but it's also a bit daft to assume that everyone in the 'other' category are unemployed when we don't even know what 'other' covers!