Youth Unemployment

torminalis – its a way of showing the the south east sucks money out of the wider economy.

I do beg to differ old bean, even if the folk from the south east have the highest expenditure heaped upon them one has to take into account what they generate in the first place before suggesting that that sum is subsidised by other parts of the country.

It may be, but I would be very interested in seeing proof for the fact that people from the SE have the highest costs of anywhere relative to income generated.

I thought those in full time education, but looking for part time work were counted (286,000)?

As someone in that age bracket,I moved to Canada to both work and live, but I was in an incredibly lucky position to be able to do so (hydrology/petro-fire stuff), and somehow ended up with a project mangerial/master technician position before I’d even finished my masters on a reclamation/engineering project. Canadian friends of mine ask ‘so when are you going back’ not quite realising how good they have it. Several of them have commented that my job is relatively low paying for the field (it is), and they wouldn’t get out of bed for that kind of money (sort of the attitude graduates of earlier years in the UK had). But the experience I am getting is unbelievable and the colleagues I have are incredible. Very interesting to see the two attitudes differ from a country that has a huge resources based industry sector and one which doesn’t.

The majority of my close friends have found work within the UK although despite getting promotions, and being top of their respective classes (finance/geology/hydrology/law) none of them are exactly rolling in it, and in most cases, they seemingly have to justify their existence every 3-6 months. As for my best mate who has a first from both Leeds and an Mphil from Cambridge, I was dismayed when he skyped to ask for advice on his salary package. And that wasn’t from a smug git sense of ‘I earn more than you’ more from the ‘I know how hard you work, what goes into the work you do, and they’re paying you THAT?!’

It is my nephews (11-13 age bracket) I really fear for. Truly.

I’d echo what you’re saying there. As Junkyard said before, companies can get someone with 15 years experience for what they’d be paying a graduate a few years back.

I reckon salaries have gone down around 30% across the board in my industry, as employers take full advantage of this. If you were to get a graduate position, god knows what the salary would be! Certainly nowhere near enough to be servicing the kind of debts students are finishing with.

This country is being progressively, but rapidly, de-skilled. Look at the jobs that have disappeared overseas. All highly skilled, degree-level positions

And look whats replacing them. Glorified shelf-stacking positions. What this means in the long term, god knows. We can’t all end up serving each other subs in the 127,000th branch of Subway

I know what youre saying Binners, but we still have big skill shortages in other areas, problem is companies are happy to import labour and negate the need to employ locals.
I speak from an IT point of view, but have seen it in big construction projects with refineries etc.
Companies like to bring in cheap staff from India etc and put them up in hotels for the life of the project and still pay them about a third of a UK wage.
So we are progressively being f@#ked from all angles.

binners – Member
I’d echo what you’re saying there. As Junkyard said before, companies can get someone with 15 years experience for what they’d be paying a graduate a few years back.

To add to this, many of the recent grads I have seen have had massively high salary expectations, way above what most entry level jobs pay these days. Along the lines of, “I have a degree in XYZ therefore you should pay me gazillions of pounds”. These expectations are almost always totally unjustified and unfounded on any real understanding of the job market. Are they taught that they’ll get paid gazillions and so expect it as if it’s their right or something?

The other issue is everything is being upskilled / requires a certificate/qualification to do it. You can’t become a labourer on a building site, you need a CSCS card. You can’t become a bouncer on a club/pub door you need a SIA card.
Admin job advertised locally, required you to have a good degree. No mention of typing skills, or office skills.

To add to this, many of the recent grads I have seen have had massively high salary expectations, way above what most entry level jobs pay these days. Along the lines of, “I have a degree in XYZ therefore you should pay me gazillions of pounds”. These expectations are almost always totally unjustified and unfounded on any real understanding of the job market. Are they taught that they’ll get paid gazillions and so expect it as if it’s their right or something?

thats because they have mahoosive student loans to pay off

just wait till the the 9000quid a term tuition fee students have graduated!

What puzzles me most, is how the the general populace of the political spectrum seem ‘okay’ with this happening, are happy to collect their pensions…and then retire to live in the mess they’ve created. Utterly baffling.

I think there is an element of truth to the graduate salaries thing.

When I was choosing the course I was going to do I was told they were crying out for Civil Engineers and that the starting salary was right up there.

As much as I know the recession hit the construction industry very hard im sure that the uni was just trying to entice us into doing civils there by telling us that.

I can now say that its a good job I didnt go into it for the money!

Think I just recoiled in horror after reading this. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/nov/16/young-jobseekers-work-pay-unemployment

take into account what they generate in the first place before suggesting that that sum is subsidised by other parts of the country

I took your question as a rhetorical one based in sarcasm. I have myself misread, and apologise.

The point I was making was this: there are many trades and professions which are dominated by the geography of the South East (London actually). This has historic bases which are pretty clear to see – the seats or political power and finance are in the same place (take Germany – politics is in Berlin, finance in Frankfurt).

For some jobs – advertising, design, insurance, law, to name a few – London dominates absolutely. Even looking at all graduate jobs, nearly half are in London, around 10% in the South East and the remainder unevenly distributed across the nation. What does this tell us?

It tells me that the South East sucks in the wealth creators (of now and the future) to the detriment of those places emptied of the same people.

I’m not having a go at anyone living in the South East and suffering the bonkers costs of living. But the fact that so much commercial and wealth generating activity is (forcibly, it seems) drawn into one corner of the nation, the worse it seems to be for both those living there and the nation as a whole.

This isn’t childish North/South divide-ism, but a weird imbalance that seems to benefit no-one other than those already doing fine thanks-very-much.

And, in the meantime, what of the youth spread around the UK (the subject of this thread)? How does having work situated away from them, in a massively expensive place (favouring those who can rely on family help to survive the costs) do the nation any favours?

Vince Cable has today spoken of a lost generation, and I think that’s exactly what we’re seeing? Sure, we can moan about individuals with silly expectations of income or behaviour (again, are they solely at fault – where did they get the idea money grows on trees?), but there is a generation of people we’re prepared to cast aside. And to whose benefit?

Student expectations of what life is like “after edumacation” are massively different too.

I recall when the thought of ten grand a year was a good starting salary, as up till then, as students we’d been living in abject poverty!

None of this students chilling out with a three quid latte in the early nineties, thats for sure.

Student accomodation in the naughties:

Student accomodation in the nineties:

Zulu – I can assure you…that 56 quid a week digs in Leeds during my undergrad looked nothing like the first photo….far from it. That and there was the Leeds Met undergrad murdered in his house on my street in a bungled bike theft.

the South East sucks in the wealth creators (of now and the future) to the detriment of those places emptied of the same people.

Gotcha, sounds fair and I largely agree.

Surely though this is just a function of supply and demand? Can anyone be blamed for this? The government are constantly chucking money at the north to try and create enterprise zones and whatnot but none of it seems to stick.

Are they taught that they’ll get paid gazillions and so expect it as if it’s their right or something?

YES.

I left school 10 years ago (6th form college and then university) and we had it drummed into us that university was the way to prosper. We were led to believe we would own houses and porsches by the time we were 30 with a degree and would be a plumber in a council house without one. At some point between 16-20 i realised this was not the case. At 26 the few guys I know who are plumbers earn way more than what I do as an engineer, and i don’t begrudge them that, I do however take issue with what we were taught in school.

Surely though this is just a function of supply and demand? Can anyone be blamed for this? The government are constantly chucking money at the north to try and create enterprise zones and whatnot but none of it seems to stick.

I tend to think of it like this:

Two men are painting a bus shelter. It’s raining. One is told to paint the inside, and the other to paint the outside. After a while the chap on the outside gets fed up with the conditions and heads inside. They leave the outside unfinished, but get the inside done in half the time and very nicely.

the South East sucks in the wealth creators (of now and the future) to the detriment of those places emptied of the same people.

That statement really depends on the theory that the highest paid are the creators of wealth, the terminology of “wealth creators” has sprung up recently to try and justify the excessive imbalance in pay between the top and bottom of the ladder, but it doesn’t hold up to critical analysis.

Torminalis

Surely though this is just a function of supply and demand? Can anyone be blamed for this? The government are constantly chucking money at the north to try and create enterprise zones and whatnot but none of it seems to stick.

this is a myth – actually government money is disproportionately spent in the south east, Highest government spend per head of population of any area in the uk

It was indeed a classic Blairite mantra that without a degree you’d end up swigging Special Brew in the gutter, with a dog on a piece of string.

Whereas with one you’d be spending every weekend locking up your Islington Town-house, loading up the Jag with fine wines and organic produce, and heading for your bolt hole in the country with your smiling, laughing, expensively educated offspring in the back.

Then somebody noticed, ten years later, that we’d imported every plumber, bricky, plasterer and electrician from Eastern Europe because we don’t actually train anyone to do that kind of thing any more

this is a myth – actually government money is disproportionately spent in the south east, Highest government spend per head of population of any area in the uk

You haven’t addressed my last point so I ain’t listening. Show me proof that the amount of money invested into the South East of the UK is disproportionate to the amout of money that is made there.

Anyway, this is a thread about youth unemployment, you just come in and start shouting about your prejudices without responding to my well balanced response to your earlier unfounded statements. Proof or give it up old chap.

Maybe I can give you a hand…

just wait till the the 9000quid a term tuition fee students have graduated!

£9K per year, not per term 🙂 Payback starting when the st00dent is earning > £21K.

Maybe I can give you a hand…

(Not taking sides, as this isn’t a point on which I was opining, but the CEBR is rather right wing, so you may well get a strong reaction to use of its data..!)

now try doing total government spend per head of population torminalis.

You will get a very different picture.

still -its along way from the OP

(Not taking sides, as this isn’t a point on which I was opining, but the CEBR is rather right wing, so you may well get a strong reaction to use of its data..!)

I just pulled it from the BBC so I assumed it must be impartial, apologies in advance if anyone can prove it to be false though. 🙂

now try doing total government spend per head of population torminalis.

So you are misunderstanding the original point in order to create an argument that wasn’t there to fit your agenda.

I can only presume in this case that your agenda must be that a disproportionate amount of the money made in the SE should be redistributed North.

Sorry OP, I shall stop rising to this nonsense.

the link mrgibbons posted is quite sickening, and is worth reading for those that may have skipped over it.

Not at all torminalis.

I said the south east sucks money out of the rest of the economy which it does if you look at total government spend per head of population which is the measure that shows this.

vinneyh – read it before. It doesn’t surprise me.

Once, this was the practice of distinctly middle class activities – the media, fashion businesses, film are notorious for abusing young people on the promise of jam tomorrow. Now, it seems that the comfortable employment practices enjoyed by baby boomers aren’t being shared with the generation of their offspring. Nice.

We’ve got to agree some kind of limit to immigration from the rest of Europe, get our kids into jobs. In many ways the Poles coming here was the best thing for decades that has happened to London, all us middle-class types got their houses renovated on time and under budget.

But there is a flip side to that, as todays numbers show. Its very noticable how many Spaniards are here now, lovely people that they are and who can blame them with almost 50% youth unemployment down there. I’m not blaming immigrants at all but we have to start looking after our own.

deluded graduates with a desmond in media studies waiting for their career job to just happen

That’s me! 😀

TBh I left uni without a clue of what to do for a ‘career’, still jolly well have not a clue really, but then I went to uniservity to get an education, not a job…

I do agree that many graduates are somewhat misguided and believe that getting a bit of paper will lead to vast riches an ting, but then that’s cos our society constantly bombards us with messages that the only way you can possibly be happy is to own loads of stuffs and have lots of money. And if you don’t then you are somehow ‘worthless’.

So it’s not really the impressionable wide-eyed young things fault really, to ‘expect’ a good job and lots of money. That’s how they’ve bin conditioned.

You know already who I blame…

Canada?

“Vince Cable spoke today of a lost generation”.I think the
word’another’ should perhaps have been in that particular
sentance.Also with failed economic policies and Welfare cuts
Cable et al are directly responsible for this latest social disaster.

You know already who I blame…

Elf went to university and I agree wholeheartedly with his post. I’m going for a lie down.

To add to this, many of the recent grads I have seen have had massively high salary expectations, way above what most entry level jobs pay these days. Along the lines of, “I have a degree in XYZ therefore you should pay me gazillions of pounds”. These expectations are almost always totally unjustified and unfounded on any real understanding of the job market. Are they taught that they’ll get paid gazillions and so expect it as if it’s their right or something?

Rightly or wrongly, I have the perception that there’s either confusion, or a false correlation in many students eyes between graduate trainee schemes where there’s normally a structured career path, and defined goals, and the ‘normal’ jobs that graduates get taken on to perform.
Many people look at the entry salaries offered by the big consultancies, banks, magic circle law firms etc, and think that those salaries bear some relationship to those on offer in the rest of the job market for entry level positions.

Starting salaries at the UK’s leading graduate employers in 2011 are expected to remain unchanged from 2010 levels – a median of £29,000. Salaries increased by 7.4% in 2010 and 5.9% in 2009.

Oh, and fwiw I broadly agree with elf, with the exception of professional qualifications, I think university should be for broader education, – for technical and career training I’d like to see the return of polytechnics, and formal apprenticeships with contractual obligations.

.I think the word’another’ should perhaps have been in that particular sentence

Yep. Apols – am too young to remember/appreciate those who suffered before.

whats a leading graduate employer?

is that one that employs the most or one that pays the most seems a bit misleading

and that figure is way above what you see in my industry- scientific research, i graduated 13 years ago and was happy i was on 10.5k starting!

Oh, and TJ, this might be of inertest to you:

Oh look, Scottish folk have the third highest amount spent per person of any region in the UK….