Living longer - it's a killer problem

Jason74

prosaver wrote: »

we need a British version of Donald trump (without the bad bits)

Donald Trump without the bad bits ?. Wouldn't that be absolutely nothing ?

MacMickster

Dird wrote: »

Poor worker attitudes. Can't be bothered to put effort in while working (productivity vs Germany), can't be bothered to stay longer than needed.

There are many factors impacting on worker productivity in the UK.

Poor worker attitudes? Perhaps this is why Nissan's UK plant consistently produces more cars per worker than any other European car plant.

When a business predominantly employees people on a part-time or worse, zero hours basis then they tend to have a higher turnover of staff, missing out on the productivity gains of experienced staff who "just know" what they are doing.

Two staff members working 20 hours per week each still require the same amount of annual training time, appraisal time etc, so will have less productive hours per week than their full-time counterparts.

As a large proportion of new jobs created over the last 10 years have been part-time or zero hours, it is hardly surprising that productivity from those jobs is poor.

CLAPTON

MacMickster wrote: »

Two staff members working 20 hours per week each still require the same amount of annual training time, appraisal time etc, so will have less productive hours per week than their full-time counterparts.

As a large proportion of new jobs created over the last 10 years have been part-time or zero hours, it is hardly surprising that productivity from those jobs is poor.

presumably it is fairly easy to compare the production of workers so this should be easily tested : if it proved to be the case then why wound't greedy capitalists employ only full time workers as they would make more profit.

MacMickster

CLAPTON wrote: »

presumably it is fairly easy to compare the production of workers so this should be easily tested : if it proved to be the case then why wound't greedy capitalists employ only full time workers as they would make more profit.

Employers save money on employer's national insurance by employing part-time staff. 2 staff earning £10K each cost an employer over £1100 less than 1 earning £20K. Also, a part-time workforce is more flexible. There is less disruption if a staff member is off due to sickness as it is easier to get other staff to work extra hours to cover.

It is a case of swings and roundabouts to those greedy capitalists. Productivity per full-time equivalent is not the only (nor the most important) consideration for many businesses.

CLAPTON

MacMickster wrote: »

Employers save money on employer's national insurance by employing part-time staff. 2 staff earning £10K each cost an employer over £1100 less than 1 earning £20K. Also, a part-time workforce is more flexible. There is less disruption if a staff member is off due to sickness as it is easier to get other staff to work extra hours to cover.

It is a case of swings and roundabouts to those greedy capitalists. Productivity per full-time equivalent is not the only (nor the most important) consideration for many businesses.

I guess the government wants to incentivise employment rather than production per worker
in period of higher unemployment then that may make sense

Sapphire

MacMickster wrote: »

Employers save money on employer's national insurance by employing part-time staff. 2 staff earning £10K each cost an employer over £1100 less than 1 earning £20K. Also, a part-time workforce is more flexible. There is less disruption if a staff member is off due to sickness as it is easier to get other staff to work extra hours to cover.

It is a case of swings and roundabouts to those greedy capitalists. Productivity per full-time equivalent is not the only (nor the most important) consideration for many businesses.

I agree mostly with this. I remember some 20 years ago, working for what was considered to be a very successful, progressive publishing company in which the working conditions were overall pretty good and the staff tended to be satisfied and well looked after. There then came a directive (from memory following a 'review' by some management consultants) from above that we should not employ any more full-time staff, and could only take on in-house 'freelancers' for periods of six months at a time. It was very bad for morale, and eventually most people were 'freelance', and the company failed (the owner got very greedy and 'diversified' in a disastrous way).

I believe the process of employing people thus has very much intensified since then, and is getting worse – especially with the growing labour pool of people who are increasingly desperate for work, and who are prepared to slave at jobs. An additional disadvantage of such a system is that people couldn't give a stuff about their jobs and have no loyalty to the companies they work for. I do remember a time when this wasn't the case, and when employers were actually 'paternalistic' (or 'maternalistic'), which benefitted the companies. I always said about my first job in publishing that it was amazing to be doing something like that and being paid for it (even though the pay was very low). Others said the same thing…

MacMickster

CLAPTON wrote: »

I guess the government wants to incentivise employment rather than production per worker
in period of higher unemployment then that may make sense

The problem being that many of those low-paid part-time workers then have their wages topped up with in work benefits (tax credits, housing benefit etc). The government receives less in national insurance (both employer and employee) and income tax whilst paying out more.

We have a lower unemployment rate than most of our European neighbours, but that is not an indication that the UK economy is in any way flourishing.