Generic Virus Thread

[ismail-villa]

I just want to go to a restaurant and order a beautiful steak. That's all. Also medium, none of that rare business in my steak. 

[lapal_fan]

4 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

There's been quite a bit of it across social media, and even on this forum. 

You've got to step away from the inter-generational arguements because they are absolutely moronic.

Everyone is a product of their time, and as individuals, we can affect anything very little.  

 

[StefanAVFC]

2 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

You've got to step away from the inter-generational arguements because they are absolutely moronic.

Everyone is a product of their time, and as individuals, we can affect anything very little.  

 

I agree.

Unfortunately it seems like Under 35s have had the rug pulled from them by employers during the last year.

[Genie]

4 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

I agree.

Unfortunately it seems like Under 35s have had the rug pulled from them by employers during the last year.

It’s not right but I guess for businesses looking to slash costs to survive they’ll look to take out those that are cheaper to make redundant. Also keeping the longer serving, more expensive members of staff often they have the most experience and therefore better placed to ride out the challenges.

I can see why it’s done the way it is, doesn’t make it any easier for the under 35’s though.

I was made redundant when I was about 28. Then 2 years later (2008/9 crash) as a contractor I had my 12 month contract cancelled after 3 months. It was hard. Luckily it was before we had children, had a relatively small mortgage and my wife was working full time.

[markavfc40]

I think we owe a huge debt of gratitude to the younger generations. In terms of getting ill from covid they are the least affected but have arguably made the greatest sacrifices. 

I fall into the category probably least affected. I'm 47, live with my wife and youngest daughter. My job (I'm a highways Engineer) hasn't changed one iota aside from the 50% of the job I did in the office I now do from home. My wife is a nurse so has obviously carried on working as normal. The only thing we have both found is we are busier than ever. We managed to get away last year although not as often as I usually would. In terms of going out pre covid I probably went out for a meal and a few beers once a week at most. I don't like going to shops even when they are open. 

For the younger generation though going out is a huge thing. Those weekends up town socialising. In fact when I was younger the weekend started Thursday night and ended Monday morning. You can't get those years back. 

As mentioned above in terms of job losses you have the fact younger people are more likely to work in hospitality and retail which has been massively affected. 

My youngest daughter is school age, 14, and of all us she has been the most affected mentally by all this. It was a novelty at first being off school but that wore off within a couple of months. All that learning missed, home schooling has been no substitute, but more than that not being able to see her friends has really impacted her and I'd imagine that is a very common tale. 

Of course another burden that will also fall mainly on the younger generations shoulders is that this will all need to be paid for and they will be around longer to pay for it.

I feel for youngsters I really do. 

[lapal_fan]

11 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

I agree.

Unfortunately it seems like Under 35s have had the rug pulled from them by employers during the last year.

Well generation upon generation will struggle more and more as more automation is developed even more.

You used to be able to get jobs working in car factories, tele communication, printers, call centres etc etc.  Those jobs don't exist anymore, we just do "service" which is becoming automated in some areas too, drivers will be a thing of the past in 40 years most likely.. And we try and save nice companies money so they can pay their stockholders nice sums of cash, but people with disposable income are usually those who are older and whatnot, so we audit ourselves to become more efficient, thus getting rid of more jobs, making young people's lives more difficult.

"Is it worth the aggravation, when's there's nothing worth working for?" 

It's a system thing, not a people thing.  People just try and look after themselves and their loved ones.

[magnkarl]

To be perfectly honest the job market is much harder than it was only 10 years ago. Companies use rolling contracts, hire temps, hire several people on low hour\pay contracts to fill one position and so on. You don't have to go too far back to find a time where people were valued much higher than they are in this very digital world. I'm afraid that with the bonds of EU rules now gone our job market will see even more of this, and it'll mainly affect the lowest earning young people. 

Hire someone via a temp firm = don't have to deal with the tough decisions and talks that come with getting rid of someone. Send an email to the firm and get people out of the door quick. 

[bickster]

37 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

There's been quite a bit of it across social media, and even on this forum. 

Welcome to Thatcher's Britain, the young struggled to get work in the first place

This generation war you appear to want to have is silly. It's just a game of my Dad's bigger than your Dad. Get's you absolutely nowhere.

The straight comparisons are never as straight as anyone thinks they are.

By engaging in the generational war you only help those in Government, they want us to fight amongst ourselves

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, bickster said:

This generation war you appear to want to have is silly

Dunno if he wants a generation war, but you're right. The fungus kills older generation, makes younger generation unemployed, stresses out the middle generation with their having to home school or whatever - as has been said almost no-one's benefitted from the fungus.

The bigger point, spot on - Brexit, Fungus, spending cuts to come - Thatcher on steroids is coming in terms of unemployment, and the country falling apart.

[chrisp65]

If a company is looking to reduce costs by losing jobs and salaries, it’s highly likely it will be the older staff making the decision and it would be quite rare for a group to study the evidence and report back that the people that need to go, are us.

Equally, if you’re cutting staff to save money to get out of a short term hole, and 25 y.o. Jim will cost one month of his £2,000 salary to let go, whereas 50 y.o. Bob earns £4,000 a month and gets 12 months salary as redundancy money... then it’s not much of as short term saving to wave goodbye to Bob.

Especially if he’s the guy with the phone numbers of his opposite numbers in the suppliers and client offices he’s worked with closely for 10 years.

But just to counter that. We are currently trying to recruit full time staff, already trained up, but not wanting to be job running managers, and it’s really difficult. All the Spanish and Portuguese have gone home, even the Bulgarians have gone home. All the UK Nationals want to work as self employed because it’s more money this month, right now, and they can move to a better higher paid offer next month. That is our current real life experience. We’ve been looking for full time staff since November.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[blandy]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

All the Spanish and Portuguese have gone home, even the Bulgarians have gone home. All the UK Nationals want to work as self employed because it’s more money this month, right now, and they can move to a better higher paid offer next month. That is our current real life experience. We’ve been looking for full time staff since November.

It's looking like we'll have the double hit of lots of vacancies for work people in the UK don't want to do AND loads of unemployed people.

[Genie]

32 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

You used to be able to get jobs working in car factories, tele communication, printers, call centres etc etc.  Those jobs don't exist anymore

I think all those jobs still exist in vast numbers. 
I certainly know there are a lot of car factory jobs in the UK. JLR has about 40,000 direct employees and builds cars in Castle Bromwich, Solihull and Merseyside. There’s a total of about 250,000 UK jobs that rely on JLR in the supply base.

Aston Martin, GM, Honda, Lotus, McLaren, BMW (Mini), Nissan, Toyota, Vauxhall all build cars in volume in the UK.

[Genie]

5 minutes ago, blandy said:

It's looking like we'll have the double hit of lots of vacancies for work people in the UK don't want to do AND loads of unemployed people.

Brexiteers will argue it’ll force up the wages for Brits.

I suspect what will happen is these companies will relocate to the EU.

[blandy]

Just now, Genie said:

I suspect what will happen is these companies will relocate to the EU.

Those that can, will. Farms can't. Makers of (say) british cheeses, whisky and all that kind of thing can't. There's gonna be a whole lot of pain.

[brommy]

4 hours ago, LondonLax said:

There is a third aspect where so many people had the virus over Christmas that the virus has a harder and harder time finding new victims and possibly a forth variable with the two peaks occurring in the colder weather and calming down in the warmer months  

The chart of infection in the U.K. pretty closely matches Sweden’s which didn’t have a lockdown or vaccines. 

With all the possible variables it’s difficult to pin down how effective the lockdown is but hopefully vaccines will now ensure it stays suppressed. 

Whilst the infection numbers were relatively high over Christmas, the large  majority of the UK population have not been infected and are still at risk. Viruses struggle to spread as approaching 80% of a general population have the antibodies. Over Christmas the UK was nowhere near this level of ‘herd immunity’.  3 months and a massive vaccination programme later, the UK is still not near herd immunity. Through vaccination I hope we’ll be very close or have achieved it before the virus finds it easier to spread in this forthcoming winter.

[magnkarl]

It's a double edged sword alright. Cheap labour from EU = good for business but not necessarily for the lower middle class. Realising that social dumping has been a thing and increasing wages\educating our own work force = bad for business. It's not a brexit argument that cheap low cost labour has wrecked the UK lower middle class, it's a critique of the capitalist model. Wages for manual jobs have pretty much stood still since we were allowed to hire people for scraps from the EU. Brexit has created a perfect storm as we won't have people to fill the positions vacated by that cheap labour as British people don't want to toil and work for ridiculous pay, and honestly you can't blame them.

The profit margins will go down if you want to hire British workers, and I'm not sure if that is a bad thing long term for the 'forgotten masses'.

Edited March 23, 2021 by magnkarl

[HanoiVillan]

20 minutes ago, Genie said:

I think all those jobs still exist in vast numbers. 
I certainly know there are a lot of car factory jobs in the UK. JLR has about 40,000 direct employees and builds cars in Castle Bromwich, Solihull and Merseyside. There’s a total of about 250,000 UK jobs that rely on JLR in the supply base.

Aston Martin, GM, Honda, Lotus, McLaren, BMW (Mini), Nissan, Toyota, Vauxhall all build cars in volume in the UK.

I'm pretty sure jobs in call centres still exist too (!).

UK manufacturing employment certainly did decline by a lot until about a decade ago, but has been broadly static since then:

(source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/timeseries/jwr7/lms)

I do think there's a danger of romanticising some of the 'lost' jobs here, many of which were dirty, dangerous and poorly-paid.

5 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

It's a double edged sword alright. Cheap labour from EU = good for business but not necessarily for the lower middle class. Realising that social dumping has been a thing and increasing wages\educating our own work force = bad for business. It's not a brexit argument that cheap low cost labour has wrecked the UK lower middle class, it's a critique of the capitalist model. Wages for manual jobs have pretty much stood still since we were allowed to hire people for scraps from the EU. Brexit has created a perfect storm as we won't have people to fill the positions vacated by that low income, cheap labour as British people don't want to toil and work for ridiculous pay, and honestly you can't blame them.

Whether it's a Brexit argument or not, is it in fact true that low cost labour has 'wrecked the UK lower middle class'? That seems like a big claim to me.

[magnkarl]

5 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I'm pretty sure jobs in call centres still exist too (!).

UK manufacturing employment certainly did decline by a lot until about a decade ago, but has been broadly static since then:

(source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/timeseries/jwr7/lms)

I do think there's a danger of romanticising some of the 'lost' jobs here, many of which were dirty, dangerous and poorly-paid.

Whether it's a Brexit argument or not, is it in fact true that low cost labour has 'wrecked the UK lower middle class'? That seems like a big claim to me.

Define wreck. But yes, lower middle income families have had a real decline in wages going on 20 years.

Quote

• LMI households face income falls of between 3 and 15 per cent over the period 2008–2020.
• Low-income households (those in the lowest decile group) had an average net income of £10,600 a year in 2008. By 2020 they are expected to have an income of just £9,000 a year (at 2008 prices) – a fall in real terms of 15 per cent.
• Middle-income households (those at the median) had an average net income of £23,000 in 2008. By 2020, they are expected to have an income of £22,200 (at 2008 prices) – a fall in real terms of 3 per cent.
• By 2020 there will be 2 million more jobs in high-paid professional and managerial occupations, and more than 700,000 new jobs in low-skilled service roles. But growth in traditional jobs in the middle – such as in administrative work and skilled manufacturing areas – is set to dry up.
• Planned changes in the tax-benefit system will see households that receive government income support – particularly those with children – falling steadily further behind. The most important of these is the indexation of benefits and tax credits to consumer prices rather than retail prices.

Has the fact that anyone could squeeze profits by employing low cost zero hour labour affected the lower middle class? Most definitely. 

Edited March 23, 2021 by magnkarl

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, magnkarl said:

Define wreck. But yes, lower middle income families have had a real decline in wages going on 20 years.

Has the fact that anyone could squeeze profits by employing low cost zero hour labour effected the lower middle class? Most definitely. 

Yes, I'm aware that we have been seeing wage stagnation for a long time now. My dispute is whether and to what extent this is due to immigration, and I don't think the evidence is anywhere near as strong as you suggest. Don't forget that immigration also expands customer and tax bases, and in many cases replaces unwaged labour (eg. a middle-aged woman who might have had to leave the workforce to look after a parent with dementia, who can now get care).

[ml1dch]

57 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

All the UK Nationals want to work as self employed because it’s more money this month, right now, and they can move to a better higher paid offer next month. That is our current real life experience. We’ve been looking for full time staff since November.

A similar thing which isn't talked about much - I'm pretty sure this is one of the reasons that there is such a black hole in NHS finances. 

An employed registrar (for example) will earn around £50,000. However, a locum brought in temporarily will earn more than twice that on a daily rate. 

So over the last few years there seems to be a steady production line of newly qualified doctors not going into permanent roles, creating thousands of roles that need to be temporarily filled. And coincidentally enough, thousands of newly qualified doctors who will happily be paid £500 per day, to do the same job as the guy doing it for £50k per year. Whack the whole shebang through your "Dr. Smith Medical Services" limited company and pay 20% tax on the whole lot as well. 

No blame on the doctors themselves - if you don't need the stability why wouldn't you do it the way that pays you twice as much and complete flexibility about how much you work? It's not like they are taking much of a risk on whether the demand for their service is there. 
 

Edited March 23, 2021 by ml1dch