Do young adults in the UK not want to work?

kimr41

Why would it not be acceptable to wear jeans to an interview for a slightly above minimum wage job?

Jeans is never acceptable for a job interview. Dress for the position you want is what I have always been told.

What if the position is for selling jeans? Or construction? Or working in a warehouse. Oh wait. I'm pretty sure those would pay better. Never mind.

I don't think jeans is acceptable for a job interview. I work in a professional office but work part-time jobs in restaurants, fast food, golf course, etc & I have never wore jeans to those interviews either.

jenilla1

...Look. There are certain people in every generation that complain bitterly about the younger generation coming up. It's basically a right of passage. Ignore it. People who can't treat others as individuals have problems in a variety of ways, and it is often best to just give their opinions the zero consideration that they deserve. We did the same in my generation, Gen X. Video games and skateboarding were going to end the world back then, FFS.

Agreed. This is another bash the young people thread. It's the same old thing that happens with every generation. There are lazy bums and hard workers in every generation. People tend to look at the "good old days" with rose-colored glasses and they tend to fear change. As a high school teacher, I know that a few bad apples can really stand out and skew your perception of the whole group. Don't worry, though, another generation will come along and eventually this one will complain about them, too. :laugh:

trojanbb

Unfortunatlly it is near impossible to work your way up for the average human. Evidence in how many "poor" people there are to those in "middle class" and "rich". When humans make a decision they weight the risk vs reward of the situation. If the job you are looking at acomplishing provides to much risk and little reward then you will choose not to take that job, if you do you are unhappy about doing it. If you spend 32hours + working and can only afford part of the security needed (food, water, airable land, shelter, entertainment, health, retirment) then the risk is already to high and you will be unhappy. I know what your thinking, it is better to work and afford food and shelter at least to stay alive... and be miserable, and build frustrations that you take out on your family, loved ones.

incorrect talking points based on no data. you can not make any inference to job mobility or working the way up by looking at statistics that only show percentage of population in each income group. that says nothing about the individuals therein and mobility. people do not stay in the same income groups...even if average income never changes or even decreases


job mobility in the US at least is very high. Google the mobility statistics. looking at at statistics for income as data without a time element is meaningless. the majority of people defined as poor are no longer in that classification 8 years later. and alarge part of the top 10% moves to the median 8 years later. the middle class is even more fluid

So the 99% movment and the wide disparity gap between rich and poor is the data. The fact that most of the world is poor, if you just take the USA most of the population is considered poor. They talk about how the middle class has been declining because of this recession. Middle class is just another way of saying these people make enough money to provide there securities in life and buy crap that is not needed to fuel the economy.
Poor don't really add to the economy because they do not have money to buy useless crap, they are to busy spending it on trying to have a place to sleep. Its not enough so they take advantage of food stamp programs to feed themselves and still cannot afford health care. Talk to someone in these conditions they are not happy to live this way they are broken and given up on the idea of acheiving anything better.

The system is set up this way, people will work to survive screw there happiness we are indoctrinated into the whole "Well work harder, strive to be better its your fault your unhappy, The american dream" The ideal conditions to achieve this has already come and gone. Buisness is all about trying to limit there employee wages, benefits, taxes to increase profit for there company and themselves. It works against the interest of the people struggling to get out of being poor. (Great depression is an example of this being unbalanced)

Not everyone has the fortitude to push through and strive to reach there dreams. Especially when so much obstacles are stacked against them. "You are fat, so resolve the problem! exercise, diet" people know the problem but they don't all do it. Its simliar in how poor are. Its easier to just take advantage of the benefits and food stamps. Then to work a min wage job that doesn't pay the bills. Few jobs will give you the income to rise above with high school diploma.

So you go to college (which is a buisness) get a degree and are weighted down with huge tuition debt to add to a house, car, other bills for your needs. Soon you have to many people with degrees seeking the same jobs that pay good. If you can aquire the job it works out, but a lot are finding those jobs are not available already filled. In time i'm willing to bet those jobs will start paying less, as there are more stock of workers in the market competing for it. Years down the road you find many people who stuggle to pay there bills even with social security and retirments because of lack of or inability to save a nest egg over the years. That is just the way it is projecting for finance/work force. Can you find a way to get through all of this? Yes, but it is hard and complicated and not everyone can have there fair share, there cake on the current system. Rich rely on the poor to keep them rich, that is the truth today.

I ask everyone to reflect on how they grew up and how it shaped your way of thinking. Here is an example. Now if you were a child growing up in a family were your parents work a min wage job (poor) you see the hardship your parents go through. They will usualy be tired, complaining, frustrated, scared of projected future of paying bills, generally unhappy. Maybe you have a father who goes drinking to alievate his unhappiness after work, or tunes out everything watching television. Doesn't spend time with the wife or children. These are due to work, trying to bring entertainment in his life. He comes home your mother is constantly yelling at him, giving him reasons for why hes worthless. Due to not achieving basic securities for living to her its his fault they live poor he should be taking away all these bills and lack of securities. They don't have the love for each other anymore, maybe stuck in a partnership just to live, or have children.

A lot of people grow up in different enviroments and those cirmustances shape our lives. If you were a child in this type of situation you eventually have to make a choice on how you live your life. You would possibly see how tough life is and not want to go through what your parents go through? Some decide it is to tough and impossible, some try and feel trapped in there work situations becoming like there parents. Some might even find a way to provide these securities through it all and are praised as being succesful, while your brother who isn't feels bad about himself and seen as negative in his parents eyes, bring on the depression. So don't blame people for being lazy, or unresponsible. Blame the system of society that we grow up in.

This is why I suggest everyone youtube Jacque Fresco and learn about the Venus Project. It is a new way of how our society could be if we work together to achieve it. It will eliminate almost all the problems we are going through. thevenusproject.com

It is a resource based economy, were no one owns anything, there is no government, no police, no military, NO money which is the cause of almost all human problems.

a first year stats student could easily lay out a proof showing your inferences to be Invalid. its simply wrong math.

the disparity data is not mobility. if you can't understand this basic fact then the rest of your philosophizing is absurd. Its the equivalent of a person who can't construct an equation, attempting to theorize on quantum physics

whitebalance

progressivism. progressing backwards one generation at a time

qft!

gimpygramma

Interesting thread. I have nothing to add but am signing in just so I can follow it.

MeanderingMammal

curious so you have two young applicants come in both have relatively similar experiences first applicant comes in jeans and sneakers, and the second ironed slacks with a pair of outdated but polished loafers.

Does this factor into the weight of your decision at all?

For me, I might tend towards the applicant in the slacks, but that's based on dress alone.

First impressions do count, but the interview is the opportunity to corroborate the application. Personally I'd base an outcome on how they answer the questions, and what they offer as evidence to back up the claims on the application.

As above, context is important, but it's not the be-all and end-all.

anemoneprose

incorrect talking points based on no data. you can not make any inference to job mobility or working the way up by looking at statistics that only show percentage of population in each income group. that says nothing about the individuals therein and mobility. people do not stay in the same income groups...even if average income never changes or even decreases

job mobility in the US at least is very high. Google the mobility statistics. looking at at statistics for income as data without a time element is meaningless. the majority of people defined as poor are no longer in that classification 8 years later. and alarge part of the top 10% moves to the median 8 years later. the middle class is even more fluid

am interested - which stats are you referring to? did they compare job mobility with population mobility in/across/out of a given geographic region (what assumptions are being made about the stability of the population & how has it been defined)?

CollieFit

I am very fortunate in that I have a business that is relatively successful in the UK

This last few weeks I have been holding interviews to fill a position..the wage is only slightly above minimum wage, but, it is a little above.

I am looking to train this person up into a better skill.

I have not been looking for a rocket scientist or brain surgeon, just someone that would seem to have reliability and some work ethic.

5 people never bothered to turn up for the interviews...3 were late... 1 had the mother phone up to make an excuse.. a few people turned up wearing jeans....2 people actually told me they had to come for the interviews or they would lose their entitlement to social security benefits...

I was hoping to try to help someone from benefits into the workplace. Is it that young adults do not want to work?

Honestly? I think you need to rethink your approach. Whether you realize it or not, you're trying to take advantage of someone by underpaying them. In fact, your offer of "training into a better skill set" could be easily interpreted as increased responsibility for which you're likely unwilling to pay. Regardless of course of study or present circumstances, most people seem to have a fundamental grasp of market economics (ask anyone who's ever tried to buy or sell a house), and will act accordingly.

The OP isn't "underpaying" but paying above the national minimum wage. Exactly what would you expect for a completely unqualified candidate??

Lemongrab1

My brother is one of these people.
He deliberately sabotages his job interviews so he won't get hired. He'll dress chavvy, talk like he's about to fall asleep and generally look uninterested.
He doesn't want to work. He wants benefits and he wants to play GTA V.
Which is exactly what he does :noway:

VeganLexi

There's a lot of bitterness towards the younger generation in this thread...

There are lazy people of all age groups, not just the young. There are also lots of driven, successful young people in the UK.
Personally, I have worked since leaving university (I'm 32 now), have I always wanted to work? hell no! Have I always worked? apart from taking a year out to travel, yes I have.

To tar a generation with the same brush is a tad silly...

MsPudding

basically in my own personal experience (which i will admit is limited), yes young people want to work, but i guess they want a job that is worth doing and where they see a way forward to better things,

One problem is though that not every job can go on to better things. The workplace is a pyramid, a few at the top, a few more in the middle and a vast swathe at the (generally fairly unskilled) bottom. I'd add that not everyone has the intelligence or skills to go on to better things either, no matter how much training they're given. Some people will simply never rise above the bottom and that's a fact of life.

Perhaps our expectations in life have changed in general; everything has to be one step on the way to 'something better' and life just isn't like that for many. Perhaps the media is to blame for some people's unrealistic expectations in life. There was a survey amongst UK youngsters a few years ago asking what they wanted to be when they grew up - in years past the answers would be things like 'truck driver', 'nurse' etc. Now the top of the list is populated by answers like 'model', 'footballer' and 'singer'. Obviously for the vast majority none of these are realistic career choices; yet they are professions that gain lots of media attention and give impressionable folk the idea that somehow fame and fortune is going to come knocking on the door one day.

bantamspaul

Not doubting that some don't want a job but my 19yr old son is on an "Apprenticeship" (inverted commas because, in UK, you can be on an Apprenticeship for almost any job rather than actually learning a trade) which is really an excuse to pay less than minimum wage. It takes him at least an hour each way to get to work and sometimes longer for which he is paid under £100 a week. He is an excellent worker and very committed, even getting in earlier and staying on longer than he needs to at least 2 or 3 times a week. In addition to this he works in a pub at the weekends for another 10hrs at minimum wage.

He would love to get a full-time post with prospects, even on minimum wage, but has struggled so far to get one in Bristol, UK so he is left working 7 days a week.

anemoneprose

The OP isn't "underpaying" but paying above the national minimum wage. Exactly what would you expect for a completely unqualified candidate??

I think OP is paying 'slightly' above the minimum wage. Where I am, people working full time at the legal minimum wage still fall below poverty thresholds. (there are a few; one is calculated as eg the difference in % of after-tax income spent on shelter, food and clothing compared to the national average)

neandermagnon

Not all are the same, thankfully. My youngest son, who is 18, has just started university and is looking for a weekend job to supplement his student loan. He went to the student union, where he picked up lots of information on employers looking for employees in his region and is now in the process of applying to them.

He does want to work and has lots of drive and ambition, he's studying Maths for the next 3 years and says work experience, along with his degree, will hopefully be a huge help when it comes to finding a permanent full time job when he leaves university. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for him.

I do agree with you though that many young British adults do not want to work, I see that attitude first hand working in a school. Many are mollycoddled unfortunately!

This is what I did through university. I'm quite surprised that the OP hasn't found anyone who's relatively enthusiastic about working, seeing as it's supposed to be a lot harder to get a job now than it was when I was at uni. Each holiday when I was at uni, the first day of the holiday I'd go to an agency, tell them I'll do whatever work's going, give them the start of term date and say I was available any hours until the start of my uni term. On every occasion I had a job within a week, in most cases within three days. The work experience is not only valuable in that you can list it on your CV, but you learn a lot on the jobs themselves.

OP: a lot of these jobs paid quite a bit higher than the minimum wage, even though they were unskilled manual jobs. There are a lot of people with no qualifications but a good work ethic, and students who will do any work they can get to earn money during holidays to fund the next term at uni, but you're in competition with other employers for the best employees. speaking from experience, if you're going to do that kind of work, you'll go for the one with the highest hourly rate, because unskilled labour is unskilled labour, it's going to be boring, it's going to be hard, no matter where you work, so you may as well just go for the one that pays you the most money. It's possible that some of the people that didn't show had interviews elsewhere and were offered jobs and accepted and didn't bother to cancel the other interviews they had lined up. Or maybe that's just me going by how things were 15 years ago when I was at uni, when there were more jobs and fewer people looking..... but there is an expression "if you pay peanuts you get monkeys". Have you found out what other companies pay for similar work? If you're paying less than them, you'll be losing potential employees. If I was in your position, I'd be aiming to pay a little over the going rate, but ensure potential employees know I have higher standards in terms of the quality of work I expect. This would attract those with a good work ethic. Even more so if you have other things, like a pay rise after a probationary period if they can prove they are a really good employee.

CollieFit

The OP isn't "underpaying" but paying above the national minimum wage. Exactly what would you expect for a completely unqualified candidate??

I think OP is paying 'slightly' above the minimum wage. Where I am, people working full time at the legal minimum wage still fall below poverty thresholds. (there are a few; one is calculated as eg the difference in % of after-tax income spent on shelter, food and clothing compared to the national average)

The NMW is £6.19 at present for 21+ and £4.98 for 18-20. For a 40 hour week that's just under a grand a month.
With a personal tax free allowance of just under 10k per annum you'll be paying naff all in tax.

Yes that doesn't finance a millionaire's lifestyle, you might not be able to afford to run a car, you might not be able to party all the time and you might have to (God forbid) share accommodation, but it's not "poverty line"!

CollieFit

Most young adults in the UK have jobs. So no, I would not say that they don't want to work. Sorry your application pool has not borne fruit for you yet.

That, I'm afraid, is not the case. Many young adults do have jobs but to say 'most' is wishful thinking.

From the ONS:

There were 1.09 million young people (aged from 16 to 24) in the UK who were Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET), up 21,000 from October to December 2012 but down 101,000 from a year earlier.

The percentage of all young people in the UK who were NEET was 15.1%, up 0.3 percentage points from October to December 2012 but down 1.3 percentage points from a year earlier.

Just over half (53.0%) of all young people in the UK who were NEET were looking for work and available for work and therefore classified as unemployed. The remainder were either not looking for work and/or not available for work and therefore classified as economically inactive.

---

15% is not a majority last time I looked. There is regional variation with Wales having the highest proportion of NEETs at 22.3%. Still not a majority.

SteveJWatson

So your opinion is that people just need to do something they hate for majority of there time, just to struggle to have a place to sleep, and eat so they can wake up the next day and do the same thing they hate? Meanwhile the persons they work for have risen above that struggle by having others do the hated work for them?

"I was looking for a job, and I found a job;

And heaven knows I'm miserable now"

VeganLexi

So your opinion is that people just need to do something they hate for majority of there time, just to struggle to have a place to sleep, and eat so they can wake up the next day and do the same thing they hate? Meanwhile the persons they work for have risen above that struggle by having others do the hated work for them?

"I was looking for a job, and I found a job;

And heaven knows I'm miserable now"

Ahh The Smiths

neandermagnon

The OP isn't "underpaying" but paying above the national minimum wage. Exactly what would you expect for a completely unqualified candidate??

I think OP is paying 'slightly' above the minimum wage. Where I am, people working full time at the legal minimum wage still fall below poverty thresholds. (there are a few; one is calculated as eg the difference in % of after-tax income spent on shelter, food and clothing compared to the national average)

The NMW is £6.19 at present for 21+ and £4.98 for 18-20. For a 40 hour week that's just under a grand a month.
With a personal tax free allowance of just under 10k per annum you'll be paying naff all in tax.

Yes that doesn't finance a millionaire's lifestyle, you might not be able to afford to run a car, you might not be able to party all the time and you might have to (God forbid) share accommodation, but it's not "poverty line"!

dunno if the tax rules have changed, but when i worked in minimum wage and near minimum wage jobs in the UK pre going to uni, I paid tax, and it took quite a big chunk out of an already small paycheck

even sharing accommodation it's not that much money. The rents in some parts of the country are ridiculously high. And if you don't have a car, you still have the cost of public transport, and outside of London (not sure where the OP lives) public transport is a PITA and can take much longer to get anywhere than if you travel by car, and in some places it can be ridiculously expensive compared to the quality of the service. Not every young person has a parent to drive them around.

Also, as I said in my last post, there is competition between employers for the best employees... there may be a big pool of unemployed people out there, but I'm assuming the OP wants someone with a good work ethic and enough basic sense to be able to do the job correctly. Well so does every other employer. The salary needs to be high enough to make it worthwhile actually doing the job, or the better potential employees will go elsewhere, and you'll be left with the lazy ones who don't really want to work. Have a probationary period with strict standards as a way to ensure you keep the good employees who can do the job properly and have a good work ethic, and have a way to get rid of those who can't or won't work well.

SteveJWatson

Really so, it is an employer that is offering a wage, ongoing training that is at fault?

I should be at fault for the area of work or the area that someone lives? I should be ashamed for trying to offer some one work??

I wish some one could explain this to me?

I am self-emplyoyed (but not an employer) and I really cannot stand this "benevolent employer" attitude.

The main person who benefits when you choose to take on staff is you, the employer. If it isn't then you are not doing your sums properly.

Basic employment econonics: "Wage labour and capital - surplus value"

If you do not know what "surplus value" is then do your research - I have a "Daily Telegraph" guide to running small businesses which has tables to allow you to calculate the ammount of surplus value an employee would generate and, ergo, how much you should be prepared to negotiate on wage. You ought to be able to keep at least 10% of the revenue that having an employee costs for yourself, for no extra labour at your expense. They are making YOU money - you are paying them as little as you can get away with.